Never able to stay out of the news for long, the Aum Shinrikyo cult made headlines last week, but this time with deliberate intent. The unprecedented formal admission by its current acting leader, Ms. Tatsuko Muraoka, that some of the cult's members were indeed involved in the series of crimes of which the group has been accused was bound to make headlines. Among the crimes, of course, are murder and the terrifying sarin nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995 that killed 12 people and left another 5,500 ill or injured. What may not have been intended was the suspicion with which the "confession" was greeted by the public and law-enforcement officials alike.
The impact of the public acknowledgment of culpability, sent by fax to news organizations and repeated by Ms. Muraoka on a commercial television news broadcast, was partly eclipsed by simultaneous reports of police raids on the offices and facilities of another cult, Honohana Sanpogyo, on suspicion of defrauding some of its members out of large sums of money. The leader is accused of falsely promising to cure serious illnesses, including cancer, which were allegedly diagnosed through the curious practice of "reading" the soles of people's feet.
This development came only days after police discovered in a Chiba hotel room the mummified remains of a 66-year-old man being tended by two members of still another cult, the Life Space group. The body was that of a former longtime member who died of natural causes after being removed from a hospital by his own son and other cult members, who insisted to the police that he was still alive and would be revived by their healing guru. He had been dead at least four months. It may be only coincidence, but these events involving religious cults occurred just as the Diet is deliberating two bills for laws intended to control the activities of Aum Shinrikyo, but which avoid mentioning the group by name.