The Terrifying Tale of Aum Shinrikyo, Chapter Two: "Save The World By Ending It"

Stuff They Don't Want You To Know

iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture

4.3 • 10.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2025

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As the Aum Shinrikyo movements gains national, then global, attention, the founder Shoko Asahara begins to move his followers in a darker direction. Convinced that the world can only truly be saved through mass casualty events, Asahara first predicts massive disasters -- and then orders his followers to create these events themselves. In chapter two of this strange two-part series, Ben and Matt learn how Aum committed multiple acts of terror, murder, extortion and fraud leading up to their infamous sarin attacks on the Tokyo subway... and what happened to the cult in the aftermath.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events.
0:06.5	You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
0:12.1	A production of IHeartRadie. Hello, welcome back to the show.
0:27.6	My name is Matt.
0:28.5	Our colleague Noel is still on an adventure.
0:31.4	But we'll be returning soon.
0:33.3	They call me Ben.
0:34.7	We're joined with our guest super producer, Gnomes Griffin.
0:38.5	Most importantly, you are you.
0:40.5	You are here.
0:41.5	That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
0:44.9	This is a little bit of an unusual case for us.
0:49.4	We're spending the entire week on the notorious, infamous death cult, Om Shinrico.
0:56.7	So, Matt, what do you say?
0:59.1	We get done with the housekeeping.
1:02.1	Listen to part one.
1:03.4	Okay, we got to say that part.
1:04.9	And then let's just dive in, media rest.
1:09.2	Oh, yeah.
1:10.1	We already got past all the part where it was a nice, a nice spiritual movement.
1:15.5	And now we're into full apocalyptic mode. Let's go.
1:19.5	This is an I-Heart podcast.
	...

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