Gurus In Jail: A Roundup

File under: Gurus Doin' Time

• Chile's own Nazi death nurse and Colonia Dignidad leader Paul Schaefer is getting blamed for the execution of at least 22 dissidents immediately after the coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power:

Gerhard Mucke, one of the former leaders of the colony, made the disclosures about the killings of dissidents to Jorge Zepeda, the judge investigating human rights abuses at the sprawling farm 210 miles south of Santiago, the newspaper said.

Mucke told the judge that Schaefer ordered him in 1978 "to clean the farm" removing the remains.

"All the bodies were burned," Mucke said, according to the paper.

We imagine Schaefer now getting his "farm" cleaned every time he drops the soap in the shower.

• And in Japan, a couple of AUM acolytes were busted for tax evasion for trying to set up a slush fund for subway-gassing death row guru Shoko Asahara's wife and daughter:

The 35-year-old man and his conspirator... allegedly opened the savings account with the purpose of having the man's company dodge taxes and used the account to support the wife and daughter of Aum founder Shoko Asahara, whose death sentence is expected to be finalized in the near future.

This is apparently in addition to the money Asahara's wife is getting for leasing her paintings to the cult:

According to the agency, oil paintings depicting gods including Shiva, in whom the cultists have faith, are hung in the group's buildings around the country. The paintings are said to be the works of [Asahara]'s wife, and some cult members believe the paintings depict [Asahara].

That sounds a bit conflict of interesty to us, but a gal has got to pay her bills and we suppose it's better than turning tricks on the corner.

Asahara's Daughters Want To Know Why

File under: Gurus Doin' Time

Today's LATimes explores the plight of Mayumi and Kaori Asahara, the daughters of subway-gassing AUM guru Shoko Asahara, who is in the pokey waiting to be executed. The girls are working hard to get dad off the hook, claiming–as his lawyers have been–that he is insane and therefore not able to understand what is happening to him. Nor has he seemed able to provide his daughters with an adequate explanation for what he did:

They desperately need something back from their father too. They are seeking an explanation of why the man who taught them to cherish life, even that of an ant, could be a cult leader responsible for Japan's worst terrorist attack.

Geez. Insanity seems like the best explanation for that. Maybe Asahara really shouldn't be dropped down the chute.

But the Japanese public will not have it. Asahara shook up Japan that way 9/11 did to us:

When Japanese close their eyes they still see Asahara as he was when he was orchestrating mayhem: A white-robed guru with a flowing black beard and glass eye, a man who twisted the minds of well-educated men and women who seemed indistinguishable from everyone's else's sons and daughters. The image has become the icon of evil in modern Japan.

Crazy or not, it doesn't look good for Asahara or his daughters. It's their family tragedy on top of all the tragedy that Asahara brought to Japan. We're feeling sorry for them all right now.

Asahara's Wackjob Act Gets Real

File under: Gurus Doin' Time

[Ed.note: We suppose yesterday's entry would have been more aptly titled as: Asahara Presses Grabs On With Wackjob Act.]

While teams of psychiatrists in Japan compete to certify or debunk AUM guru Shoko Asahara's fitness to stand trial in his death penalty appeal, the subway-gassing guru is erecting his wackjob act to an ever more turgid inflation:

It's these incidents, according to the weekly, that Asahara showed he was pulling more than other people's legs.

"He took off his trousers and diapers, exposed his genitalia and masturbated. He repeated the same action frequently. Whenever he acts like that, he drops his trousers, his diaper and diaper cover to his knees, finishes the act, then raises his trousers up to his waist again," Friday quotes the Nishiyama Report as saying.

"In April 2005, just before the accused's lawyer entered a visiting room, the accused exposed his penis and began masturbating, continuing until he had finished while the lawyer stood before him the entire time. He has repeated this act of masturbation in the visiting room, as well as in his solitary confinement cell since being placed under observation in May. He also performed the act in front of his daughters when they came to visit him in August of the same year," the Nishiyama Report says.

Despite acknowledging acts such as the shameless masturbation in front of his adult daughters, the Nishiyama Report ruled that Asahara had not lost his faculties to the extent that it should stop him from going into court.

You've got to hand it to Asahara, he's going balls out in his flight from execution now.

AUM Chemist Still Going To Swing

File under: Gurus Doin' Time

The man who mixed the gas for AUM guru Shoko Asahara's infamous Tokyo subway attack is still going to swing for the crime:

The high court rejected an appeal by Tsuchiya, 41, against the death sentence passed on him in January 2004 by the Tokyo District Court, which found him guilty on six out of seven counts, the exception being a charge of hiding two wanted AUM members. He was found guilty of murder and other charges that led to the deaths of 20 people.

Meanwhile, Asahara's lawyers continue to try to get him out of the noose:

In June, Asahara's lawyers petitioned Japan's Supreme Court in what could be their last chance to save him. A decision is expected at any time. If the sentence stands, and Japan follows normal practice, the self-proclaimed guru will be hanged without prior announcement, and the daughters notified only after he is dead.

With Asahara currently playing the bin Laden role in Japan, avoiding the choke chute is probably not a likely outcome. Shoko had best be pulling on his stick now while he still can, because you probably don't get to have many orgasms where he's headed.

AUM Lawyers Keep Pounding

File under: Gurus Doin' Time

Scheduled to hang, possibly much sooner than we know, subway-gassing AUM guru and terrorist Shoko Asahara is still acting crazy in his bid to avoid the chute. Meanwhile, his lawyers are still banging on the court's doors looking for another appeal:

But Takeshi Matsui, who heads the defense team, said Asahara suffers from "prison psychosis," which is manifested in delusions, hallucinations, incoherent speech and disorganized behavior. Matsui's motion demands Asahara be treated and that they be allowed to appeal once he is stable enough to assist his defense.

"I have heard these kind of problems can be treated in a matter of months," Matsui said.

No wonder Asahara is going to die. His lawyers are rank amateurs and perhaps should have spent a bit more time researching "prison psychosis":

Ganser syndrome is a rare psychiatric disorder known as a factitious disorder. It is characterised by the individual mimicking behaviour they think is typical of a psychosis; usually by providing nonsensical or wrong answers to questions, and doing things incorrectly. It is also sometimes called nonsense syndrome, balderdash syndrome, syndrome of approximate answers, pseudodementia or prison psychosis. This last name, prison psychosis, is sometimes used because the syndrome occurs most frequently in prison inmates, where it may represent an attempt to gain leniency from prison or court officials.

Seeing as Asahara is thought of as the most evil person in all of Japan, we're laying odds that his "treatment" is going to be the cure of everything that ails him, including his life.

Jailed Aum Guru's Death Dodge

File under: Gurus Doin' Time and Wackadoo Gurus

It looks like that diaper wearin', subway gassin' death row guru, Shoko Asahara, is still trying to pull a "The Chin" in an attempt to escape his sentence. Relatives and his lawyer claim he's completely lost the plot and have petitioned to have him moved from the prison where he's being held to a hospital.

Incarcerated for about a decade, Asahara seemed to begin to lose his mind about a year after his death sentence was handed down. He has "mumbled unintelligibly and made unexplained gestures" in court, and his lawyer claims "it is impossible to communicate with him."

Is this a desperate attempt at self-preservation, or the result of a psychotic grandiosity? Asahara should be able to face death with alomb, were he actually a jnani. But like all of the wackadoo gurus, it's really always and only about him and his majesty as an enlightened being. He pushed it further than most, going as far as to attempt to incite an apocalypse in Japan. That's got him in the realm of the extreme among the wackadoos, but it's pretty much all coming from the same place in all of them: me, me, me.

For his deluded devotees, it's him, him, him, so we imagine they are pretty excited that their supreme leader may get somewhat sprung by acting like it. Asahara won't be off the hook, but he'll be extending his time alive, and therefore expanding the possibilities for its eventual resolution. And who knows what his crazy devotees will come up with in the meantime. We see diaper clad warriors overpowering security and making off with a suddenly very alert Asahara, to be secreted away á la Osama Bin Ladin somewhere in Russia. Another terrorist guru on the loose in a world with too many.

Court Spanks AUM Lawyers

File under: Gurus Doin' Time

Subway-gassing, death-row guru Shoko Asahara's lawyers have been slammed by the Tokyo High Court for failing to file his death penalty appeal on time:

The lawyers demanded trials be suspended and did not submit a statement of reasons for an appeal by the August 2005 deadline, arguing that Asahara lacked the ability to undergo a trial as he could not communicate with them.

The Tokyo High Court and the Supreme Court rejected Asahara’s appeals in March and September this year respectively, finalizing his death sentence.

But not to worry, the Japan justice system appears to have more loopholes than a U.S. military torture handbook, affording Asahara plenty more time to prove he's nuts by playing with his nards.

Soon To The Chute? Maybe Not

File under: Gurus Doin' Time

It's the final-final-final, finally for the Tokyo subway-gassing guru, Shoko Asahara. His last appeal has been dismissed and he's got nowhere more to go except down a chute with a noose around his neck. Or does he? It seems like the courts in Japan have a hard time being final about anything:

The Supreme Court voted to reject the former guru's appeal, said Naoki Katayama, a court spokesman, but he refused to say whether this would lead automatically to Asahara's execution.

A Justice Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of ministry rules, said the decision finalized the death sentence, but that Asahara's defense team could still forestall his execution by applying for a retrial or an emergency appeal.

It sounds like Japan is in for more of the wackjob who wacks-off's hijinks, as Asahara appears to have yet another chance to prove he's as crazy as a kitten on acid.

This one is still developing – perpetually – to the chagrin of his victims' families and much of rest of Japan.

AUM: Running For Their Lives

File under: Gurus Doin' Time

As wack off guru Asahara Shoko and his murderous minions sit in jail awaiting their death sentences, they're running like scared little bitches in whichever direction they think is going to save them. Asahara is attempting to pull a "Chin" maneuver in the courts, acting all wackjob as he wacks off in front of anyone he can get to watch, including his own daughters. Now one of his lieutenants and co-conspirators in at least 26 of the murders (in separate attacks) is claiming he should be spared the noose because he was only taking orders from Asahara.

Recognize that tune? They played it on Radio Nuremberg all the time.

None of these clowns are yogis of any sort to be so frightened by death. Like most of the rest of the world, they value their hides over everything else, including those they killed and their responsibility for their crimes. It reveals the depth of Asahara's fraud and the astonishing stupidity of the thousands of people who believed he was going to take over the world.

We believe there's a James Bond movie script in there somewhere.

Update: Asahara's right-hand man, Tomomitsu Niimi, is going to drop through that hole in the floor as his death sentence has been upheld.

Tug-Of-War With Terrorist Guru

File under: The Siddhi of PR, Wackadoo Gurus and Gurus Doin' Time

Fumihiro Joyu has got his work cut out for him. He is attempting to rehabilitate the notorious AUM Shinrikyo "doomsday cult" while weaning the remaining members of their space-daddy addiction to one of the world's all-time wackadoo gurus, the subway-gassing Shoko Asahara.

The fact that Asahara is skedded to hang may not rid Joyu of the object of the cult's veneration. Like so many others who have succumbed to the effects of their space-daddy gene, these folks are dumber than paint:

Members routinely gather in front of the facility in Tokyo's Kosuge district to offer prayers to the man who masterminded the March 20, 1995, sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway system that left 12 dead and thousands sickened.

Asahara will become another of the millions of gurus worshiped after their death. A space-daddy in life, a space-daddy forever.

Joyu seems confident that without a space-daddy to lead them, his movement will do fine nonetheless. He's banking on the tried-and-true delusion of supernatural power to keep folks on the hook:

"There still are innovative aspects in Aum discipline which can help people to experience supernatural power. It will be a carrot to attract new followers."

Too bad that "power" renders its wielders blithering idiots.

AUMost At The End Of The Rope

File under: Gurus Doin' Time

There's little time left for AUM guru Shoko Asahara, said to be "the worst criminal in the history of Japan," as her people demand to be delivered from the continuing horror of his existence. Straight out of the plot of a James Bond movie, he's Adolf Osama Bin-Manson to those affected by his terrorist villainy, which included forced druggings, commonplace murder and those terrible attacks on the Toyko subway, meant to foster the apocalypse and catapult Asahara into power as the supreme ruler of Japan.

Instead, he's about to come to the end of his rope... where there's a noose waiting. There's not much his defense lawyers can do after Asahara's jackadoo gambit failed, leaving almost no hope for the daughters who still grieve for him despite the fact that his notoriety has made their lives a living hell.

And to add the final insult, the community whose members stuck with him though it all is splitting to follow a new, living leader. It's a fitting exodus as the sun finally sets on the life and legacy of one of the most horrible gurus ever to curse the face of our planet.

AUM Guru Faces Schizm Along With Gallows

File under: Gurus Doin' Time and Wackadoo Gurus

Japan may be about to come to some closure with its own 9/11. Subway-gassing terrorist guru Shoko Asahara is one last appeal away from an execution by hanging.

He couldn't crazy himself out of it, leaving him to deal with the shame of jerking off in front of his daughters. To add to his destitution is the fact that one of his lieutenants is taking half the cult and leaving.

We imagine Asahara is quite ready to drop down the chute after all he's been through. And the people of Japan would not have it any other way.

The saga of AUM and it's psychotically megalomaniacal leader stands as an object lesson in how stupid folks can be in their choice of guru and acceptance of his/her narcissistically-originated incitement to horrible violence. Asahara was the Charles Manson Hitler of Japan. His hanging won't erase the memory of the horrors committed in his name, but let's hope it helps with the healing of those who survived them.

Shoko To Go Down The Chute

File under: Gurus Doin' Time and Wackadoo Gurus

Subway-gassing AUM guru Shoko Asahara has lost his bid to avoid the death sentence. This despite his crazy act in prison, which included diaper-wearing and public self-stimulating. Even with all that going for him, the Tokyo High Court was just not convinced he'd lost his marbles and threw out his appeal.

He's got one more court to appeal to, but we doubt he's going to have any luck there. The sheer horror of the man's mass-murdering ways has still got most of Japan freaked out, with the remnants of his cult under more watchful eyes than a Pakistani on a United Airlines flight deck.

Update: Further analysis of the Asahara defense team's failure to obtain the wackadoo get-out-of-execution-but-not-be-free card.

Nerve Gas Guru's Girls Get A Day In Court

File under: Gurus Doin' Time and Wackadoo Gurus

Tokyo subway gassing guru Shoko Asahara is still playing the crazy card. And now his two daughters have joined in his game:

Asahara's daughters are seeking five million yen (US$44,224) in damages from the government and the physician supervising the 52-year old former Aum Shinrikyo guru, Kyodo News agency said late Friday.

Apparently, the shock of seeing their dad diddle himself was just too much to endure gratis.

Spring Swing

File under: Gurus Doin' Time and Wackadoo Gurus

While we won't know the exact day that Shoko Asahara is set swing until after he has swung, sometime in March the floor will fall away and the final chapter in the life of the leader of the AUM Supreme Truth cult and their Toyko subway nerve gas attack will be written.

But will Japan ever be truly free of his terror? Besides the long, painful memory that precipitates around a truly horrific event, there are still a few thousand hardcore Asahara adherents running around Japan. Who knows what they're capable of?

It may be the last chapter in a stunningly insane guru's life, but his legacy may be capable of producing a few more tomes before this story finally winds down.

China Lambasts Dalai Lama For Supporting AUM

File under: The Siddhi of PR

The People's Republic of China hates them some Dalai Lama, mostly because they covet his overwhelming popularity in Tibet even though he hasn't been there since 1959. Thus, they feel they have to come up with these propaganda missives against the guy:

The Dalai Lama supported Shoko Asahara and his Aum Shinrikyo cult, who carried out a sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 which killed 12 and made thousands sick, Xinhua said, in a piece signed by somebody calling themselves Shi Shan.

"It was the support and connivance of the 14th Dalai Lama who took the foe for his friend that made Asahara feel secure in the knowledge that he had strong backing," Xinhua said, in typically strong language.

We imagine the poor D.L. was just being a nice guy when he backed the AUM loonies and their death row guru. He probably gives the same recognition to many spiritual organizations out of a general courtesy rather than a specific endorsement of their ideas or leadership.

Since the D.L. is no psychologist or psychiatrist, he couldn't have known just how out there the AUM folk were about to go. So, nice try, China, but no lollipop for you this time.

Joyu Makes His Move (For Like The Billionth Time)

File under: Gurus Doin' Time, The Siddhi of PR and Wackadoo Gurus

The webernets has been somewhat aflame with news of Fumihiro Joyu's Aum Supreme Truth Cult schism as of late, but it's not like the guy hasn't been blowing that horn for the last six months. It may have bored us silly, but it's good PR and marketing nonetheless.

It turns out that Joyu, who did 3 years for perjury after that nerve gas nastiness, is a bit of a teen heartthrob in Japan:

Joyu was often seen on Japanese television denying Aum's involvement in the attack and won admirers, especially among teenage girls, who saw him as handsome and articulate.

If he's smart and plays his cards right, he should be able to establish a nice little harem for himself after he gets his new cult fired up and in gear.

As for their former, subway-gassing guru, Shoko Asahara sits in his jail cell diddling himself as he waits for the warden to take him on his "dead man" walk to the execution chamber.

Meanwhile, the authorities in Japan are still scared shitless as to what his nutjob followers are planning to commemorate the hanging of their living God. We suggest a mass suicide, allowing those dumb enough to still believe in Asahara to spend the rest of eternity burning in Hell with him while leaving the rest of Japan alone to find something else to be afraid of.

AUM Apostate Accelerates Away

File under: Gurus Doin' Time

AUM splinter guru Fumihiro Joyu took his cut of the AUM faithful on a 3-day pilgrimage around Japan that mirrored subway-gassing guru Shoko Asahara's same excursions in the early 90s.

The AUM faithful countered with their own retreat. It's the second time there's been dueling events that have split the congregation. Given AUM's penchant for terrorism and mass murder, Joyu had better be watching his back. But with AUM's fauxcotic leader jerking-off in front of his daughters on the way to a date with a noose, the fundie AUMies may soon face even more fragmentation as they see their fervent hope that Asahara will save himself with his omnipotent powers as Shiva die along with their guru in one quick drop through the chute.

Death Row Guru's Sins Stain Family

File under: Gurus Doin' Time

The woes of the children of Shoko Asahara are many. Denied admission to schools, jobs and a place to live with few friends to speak of, Asahara's pair of twenty-something daughters and his tween son are enduring the harsh fate of a death row family in Japan:

Human rights specialists say the Aum family case is not unusual. "While Aum is responsible for terrible crimes, there are also many others who live in shame, suffer depression and even commit suicide because they cannot face the social ostracism in Japan after they are identified to be related to a criminal, especially when the crime involves the death sentence..."

It all sounds a bit unfair to us. Sure the guy was completely evil, but that doesn't mean his kids are. It must be a Japanese thing.

We suppose it's their karma to endure this fate as one more dimension of the tragedy wrought by their father's murder spree. We recommend that they just come to the States. With an agent and the correct approach, they could easily work their familial ties into a ton of street cred... and perhaps even a movie deal or two.

Asahara Presses On With Wackjob Act

File under: Gurus Doin' Time

Here's an interesting question: can someone who attempted to kill thousands ever be considered sane? Subway-gassing AUM founder Shoko Asahara, on death row for the deed, is pressing on with his insanity act. It started out with gibberish and diaper wearing; it's now moved on to silence. At least this is more in keeping with the behavior of a yogi than an insane person. But if it's just the fear of death that's got him silent, it makes him a lot less of a yogi and a lot more like a scared little dog.

He's probably a mixture of both. We honestly can't say we're not the same, but then we've never tried to jump start Armageddon with nerve gas... or are in prison waiting to be executed for it.