Several of the former Aum members I spoke to were introduced to me by scholars and journalists they had been in touch with. Having found some value in the interviews, these former members introduced me to friends who had also been part of Aum. Much of their motivation had to do with their need to understand more about what had happened to them in the cult, how they had become so profoundly involved with a group they and others came to see as criminal, and how they could extricate themselves from their tie to a guru who still had a considerable psychological hold on them. I felt a certain sympathy for their efforts, while remaining aware, as were most of them, of their moral complicity in Aum. To protect their anonymity, I have used pseudonyms consisting only of family names for those I interviewed. In addition, I have altered certain identifying details that do not affect the substance of our exchanges.
