ABSTRACT
In August 1988 Aum opened its commune at Kamikuishiki. This signalled a further step in its apparent transition from a small yoga group into a successful religious movement financially sound enough to buy tracts of land for religious development and capable of establishing religious communities at the centre of its mission for world salvation. However, despite this semblance of success, there were already problematic signs indicating a much less positive side to Aum. Its earlier optimism had started to give way to a darker and more pessimistic vision in which catastrophe and war came to be seen as inevitable, universal salvation as impossible, and only selective individual salvation for the faithful and devout practitioners of Aum as feasible. As this shift occurred, Asahara’s thoughts turned from the possibility of universal salvation to the inevitability and eventually the desirability of mass destruction.
