cult mentioned in 'Gehenna'

[Guest Pencil Machine Operator]

Hello,

I meant to mention this earlier but forgot.

Remember in 'Gehenna' when Atkins talks about the Sarin gas, and how it was used by a cult in Japan? Well, he was talking about real-life events: the cult was called Aum Shinrikyo and their leader was called Shoko Asahara; they released Sarin in various subway trains and killed twelve people (and injured a lot more).

Anyway, about 2 weeks ago, after a long trial, Shoko Asahara was sentenced to death (I don't beleive in the death penalty, so I'm not going to rejoice; I'm a big fan of 'Covenant', incidentlly). Scarily enough, the Aum Shinrikyo cult is still active under a different name: Aleph. There's plenty of info about them on the web, including some anti-terrorist site's descriptions.(sorry I have'nt got the appropriate links off-hand)

If you're really interested, there's a book called 'Underground' by Haruki Murakami, Which I highly reccomend; it's got some really insightful interviews with victims and cult-members (including one of the guys who actually released the gas), and some scary information: apparantly the cult ran for government before the attacks, but failed, thank god/allah/buddha/vishnu/ganesh etc...

See You,

Pee Em Oh