The impulses that drove Asahara and Aum are by no means unique to him and his group. Rather, Aum was part of a loosely connected, still-developing global subculture of apocalyptic violence—of violence conceived in sweeping terms as a purification and renewal of humankind through the total or near-total destruction of the planet. One can observe these inclinations in varied groups on every continent. Their specific transformative projects may be conceived as religious or political, the violence to be employed either externally directed or suicidal or both at once. One can find certain psychological parallels to Aum Shinrikyō in, for instance, the Jewish fundamentalists who encouraged the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in Palestinian Hamas suicide bombers, and in Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists who act violently on behalf of claims to ancient sacred places on the Indian subcontinent. But my exploration of Aum led me particularly to the apocalyptic inclinations of American groups like the Charles Manson Family, Heaven’s Gate, and Peoples Temple, as well as the Oklahoma City bombers, Aryan supremacists, and paramilitary survivalists on the radical right. Just as we now take for granted the interconnectedness of the global economic system, so must we learn to do the same for the growing global system of apocalyptic violence. Outbreaks anywhere reverberate everywhere.
