Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2008, Page 5
The court completely lacks the view that it is dealing with crimes committed
by a cult.... Sentences are handed down under the same criteria as any other
criminal offense, and punishments are based on the number of people killed
in the crime involving the accused cultist. But the judges should have first
realized that the crimes would never have happened if it had not been for
Asahara.
Arita said society has wrongly perceived the cultists as part of a bizarre
fringe group. They could have been anybody, he said, noting Asahara used
brainwashing tactics that entailed the use of drugs.
In ‗the initiation of Christ‘ ploy, Aum members had to drink a liquid
containing LSD, and then were made to sit in solitary confinement with a
photo of the guru and listen to his recorded sermons for up to ten hours.
Because they did not know they had been drugged, they thought their
hallucinations were the result of some religious miracle, thereby solidifying
their dedication to the guru, Arita said (Wijers-Hasegawa, 2004:2).
The journalist‘s points are worth reiterating because we then can compare them with
several American court rulings about people who had been brainwashed and manipulated by
other cult leaders.
First, courts apparently recognized that brainwashing occurs as a real social-psychological
phenomenon, and a lower court‘s permission to one defendant, Yoshihiro Inoue, to receive
counseling about his Aum involvement would have saved his life (Wijers-Hasegawa, 2004:2)
if a higher court had not overturned the ruling. (Later we will see examples involving
American courts where defendants claiming to have been brainwashed obtained counseling,
repented, and received reduced sentences.)
Second, Japanese courts‘ acknowledgement that defendants had been brainwashed did not
mitigate their death sentences. (Soon we will see an American case in which a parole board
also acknowledges brainwashing but continues to deny parole, probably because of the
serious nature of the initial crimes.)
Third, the journalist‘s comments remind us that Asahara‘s indoctrination techniques used
drugs—particularly LSD. Indeed, the respected terrorist expert working for the RAND
Corporation, Bruce Hoffman, also wrote about Aum‘s administration of ―drugs—including
powerful hallucinogens and electroshock therapy—to ‗brainwash‘ recalcitrant group
members and make them more compliant‖ (Hoffman, 2006:122 see 124). Although in an
article published in Cultic Studies Review I have mentioned the relatively under-examined
role that substance abuse has played in the lives of many cult leaders and members (Kent,
2004:106-107), what occurred within Aum Shinrikyo harkens back to the CIA and United
States army mind-altering LSD experiments conducted in the early to mid-1950s and early
1960s (Lee and Shlain, 1985:27-43 Scheflin and Opton, 1978:108-112, 137-144, 147).1
The brainwashing explanation appears in another analysis of a former cult member of
another group whose leader used drugs to break down and indoctrinate his followers. This
analysis involves a study of the former follower of Charles Manson, Leslie Van Houten,
written in 2001 by a Canadian criminology professor at Simon Fraser University in
Vancouver, British Columbia.
The Manson Family
Criminologist Karlene Faith is unequivocal about what happened to Van Houten: ―She joined
Manson‘s cult and she was brainwashed‖ (Faith, 2001:xviii). As part of the brainwashing
process, Faith discussed Manson‘s use of LSD to manipulate Van Houten, summarizing an
expert on the drug who testified at one of her trials that ―Leslie surrendered herself to him
The court completely lacks the view that it is dealing with crimes committed
by a cult.... Sentences are handed down under the same criteria as any other
criminal offense, and punishments are based on the number of people killed
in the crime involving the accused cultist. But the judges should have first
realized that the crimes would never have happened if it had not been for
Asahara.
Arita said society has wrongly perceived the cultists as part of a bizarre
fringe group. They could have been anybody, he said, noting Asahara used
brainwashing tactics that entailed the use of drugs.
In ‗the initiation of Christ‘ ploy, Aum members had to drink a liquid
containing LSD, and then were made to sit in solitary confinement with a
photo of the guru and listen to his recorded sermons for up to ten hours.
Because they did not know they had been drugged, they thought their
hallucinations were the result of some religious miracle, thereby solidifying
their dedication to the guru, Arita said (Wijers-Hasegawa, 2004:2).
The journalist‘s points are worth reiterating because we then can compare them with
several American court rulings about people who had been brainwashed and manipulated by
other cult leaders.
First, courts apparently recognized that brainwashing occurs as a real social-psychological
phenomenon, and a lower court‘s permission to one defendant, Yoshihiro Inoue, to receive
counseling about his Aum involvement would have saved his life (Wijers-Hasegawa, 2004:2)
if a higher court had not overturned the ruling. (Later we will see examples involving
American courts where defendants claiming to have been brainwashed obtained counseling,
repented, and received reduced sentences.)
Second, Japanese courts‘ acknowledgement that defendants had been brainwashed did not
mitigate their death sentences. (Soon we will see an American case in which a parole board
also acknowledges brainwashing but continues to deny parole, probably because of the
serious nature of the initial crimes.)
Third, the journalist‘s comments remind us that Asahara‘s indoctrination techniques used
drugs—particularly LSD. Indeed, the respected terrorist expert working for the RAND
Corporation, Bruce Hoffman, also wrote about Aum‘s administration of ―drugs—including
powerful hallucinogens and electroshock therapy—to ‗brainwash‘ recalcitrant group
members and make them more compliant‖ (Hoffman, 2006:122 see 124). Although in an
article published in Cultic Studies Review I have mentioned the relatively under-examined
role that substance abuse has played in the lives of many cult leaders and members (Kent,
2004:106-107), what occurred within Aum Shinrikyo harkens back to the CIA and United
States army mind-altering LSD experiments conducted in the early to mid-1950s and early
1960s (Lee and Shlain, 1985:27-43 Scheflin and Opton, 1978:108-112, 137-144, 147).1
The brainwashing explanation appears in another analysis of a former cult member of
another group whose leader used drugs to break down and indoctrinate his followers. This
analysis involves a study of the former follower of Charles Manson, Leslie Van Houten,
written in 2001 by a Canadian criminology professor at Simon Fraser University in
Vancouver, British Columbia.
The Manson Family
Criminologist Karlene Faith is unequivocal about what happened to Van Houten: ―She joined
Manson‘s cult and she was brainwashed‖ (Faith, 2001:xviii). As part of the brainwashing
process, Faith discussed Manson‘s use of LSD to manipulate Van Houten, summarizing an
expert on the drug who testified at one of her trials that ―Leslie surrendered herself to him
