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Some of the sermons, considered 'pre-entry level' are not being studied (a good example of these are television interviews or recorded brief broadcasts of Aum's radio station, 'Evangelion Tes Basileias', or 'The Gospel of the Kingdom'). To maintain and improve thinking abilities, Asahara suggested that his followers refrain from consuming 'low-quality' and 'degrading' information from sources such as entertainment magazines and comic shows and advised them to read scientific literature instead. This approach which was dubbed 'information intake control' became a source of media criticism.
 
Aum applied specific methodologies and arranged the doctrine studies in accordance with a special kogaku (Japanese: learning) system. In kogaku, each new stage is reached only after examinations are passed successfully, imitating the familiar Japanese entrance exam paradigm. Meditation practice is combined with and based upon theoretic studies. Theoretical studies, Asahara maintained, serve no purpose if 'practical experience' is not achieved. He therefore advised not to explain anything which was not actually experienced on one's own and to suggest reading Aum's books instead.
 
followers are divided into two groups: lay practitioners and "samana" (a Pali word for monks but also used to include "nuns"), which comprise a "sangha" (monastic order). The former live with their families; the latter lead ascetic lifestyles, usually in groups.
 
According to Aum's classification, a follower can attain the following invented stages by religious practice: Raja Yoga, Kundalini Yoga, Mahamudra (sometimes called Jnana Yoga), Mahayana Yoga, Astral Yoga, Causal Yoga and the ultimate stage, the Ultimate Realization.
 
Aum also inherited the Indian esoteric yoga tradition of Shaktipat, also mentioned in Mahayana Buddhist texts. The Shaktipat, which is believed to allow a direct transmission of spiritual energy from a teacher to a disciple, was practiced by Asahara himself and several of his top disciples, including Fumihiro Joyu and Hisako Ishii. Fumihiro Joyu also performed a shaktipat-like ceremony at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
 
Following the formal closure of Aum Shinrikyo, a number of steps were undertaken that changed some of the aspects that concerned both the society and authorities. Some of the most controversial parts of the doctrine (see below for details) were removed, while the basic, general aspects remained intact. For this reason, the information on religious doctrine provided in this article remains largely relevant to the new organization Aleph as well.
 
The movement was founded by Shoko Asahara in his one-bedroom apartment in Tokyo's Shibuya ward in 1984, starting off as a Yoga and meditation class known as Aum-no-kai ("Aum club") and steadily grew in the following years. It gained the official status as a religious organization in 1989. It attracted such a considerable number of young graduates from Japan's elite universities that it was dubbed a "religion for the elite".
 
The cult started attracting controversy in the late 1980s with accusations of deception of recruits, and of holding cult members against their will and forcing members to donate money; a murder of a cult member who tried to leave is now known to have taken place in February 1989.
 
October 1989, the group's negotiations with Tsutsumi Sakamoto, an anti-cult lawyer threatening a lawsuit against them which could potentially bankrupt the group, failed. In the same month, Sakamoto recorded an interview for a talk show on the Japanese TV station TBS, which was secretly shown to the group without notifying Sakamoto intentionally breaking protection of sources. The group then pressured TBS to drop broadcast.
 
The following month Sakamoto, his wife and his child went missing from their home in Yokohama. The police were unable to resolve the case at the time, although some of his colleagues publicly voiced their suspicions of the group. It was not until 1995 that they were known to have been murdered and their bodies dumped by cult members.
 
Aum was also connected with such activities as extortion. The group commonly took patients into its hospitals and then forced them to pay exorbitant medical bills.
 
The cult is known to have considered assassinations of several individuals critical of the cult, such as the heads of Buddhist sects Soka Gakkai and The Institute for Research in Human Happiness and the attempted assassination of the controversial cartoonist Yoshinori Kobayashi in 1993.
 
At the end of 1993, the cult started secretly manufacturing the nerve agent sarin and later VX gas. They also attempted to manufacture 1000 automatic rifles but only managed to make one
 
Aum tested their sarin on sheep at a remote ranch in Western Australia, killing 29 sheep. Both sarin and VX were then used in several assassinations (and attempts) over 1994-1995. Most notably on the night of 27th June 1994, the cult carried out the world's first use of chemical weapons in a terrorist attack against civilians when they released sarin in the central Japanese city of Matsumoto. This Matsumoto incident killed seven and harmed 200 more. However, police investigations focused only on an innocent local resident and failed to implicate the cult.
 
In February 1995, several cult members kidnapped Kiyoshi Kariya, a 69-year old brother of a member who had escaped, from a Tokyo street and took him to one of their compounds at Kamikuishiki near Mount Fuji, where he was killed with an overdose and his body destroyed in a microwave-powered incinerator before being disposed of in Lake Kawaguchi. Before Kariya was abducted, he had been receiving threatening phone calls demanding to know the whereabouts of his sister, and he had left a note saying "If I disappear, I was abducted by Aum Shinrikyo".

Police made plans to simultaneously raid cult facilities across Japan in March 1995.
 
On October 31, 1989, Tsutsumi Sakamoto a lawyer working on a class action lawsuit against Aum Shinrikyo, Japan's controversial Buddhist group, was murdered, along with his wife and child, by perpetrators who broke into his apartment. Six years later it was established that the assassins had been members of Aum Shinrikyo at the time of the crime.
 
At the time of his murder, Sakamoto was known as an anti-cult lawyer. He had previously successfully led a class-action suit against the Unification Church on behalf of relatives of Unification Church members. In the suit the plaintiffs sued for assets transferred to the group, and for harm inflicted by worsened family relationships. A public relations campaign in which protesters demanded public attention to their cause was instrumental to Sakamoto's plan, and the Unification Church suffered a serious financial blow
 
By organizing a similar anti-Aum public relations campaign, Sakamoto apparently sought to demonstrate that Aum members, similar to members of the UC, did not join the group voluntarily but were lured in by deception and were probably being held against their will by threats and manipulations. Furthermore, religious items were being sold at prices far greater than their market value, draining money out of the households of members. If a judgment was handed down in his clients' favor, Aum could become bankrupted, thus greatly weakening or destroying the group.
 
n 1988, in order to pursue the class action suit, Sakamoto initiated the establishment of Aum Shinrikyo Higai Taisaku Bengodan ("Coalition of Help for those affected by Aum Shinrikyo"). This was later renamed: Aum Shinrikyo Higaisha-no-kai or "Aum Shinrikyo Victims' Association". The group still operates under this title as of 2006.
 
On October 31, 1989, Sakamoto was successful in persuading Aum leader Shoko Asahara to submit to a blood test to test for the "special power" that the leader claimed was present throughout his body. He found no sign of anything unusual. A disclosure of this could be potentially embarrassing or damaging to Asahara.
 
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