Daughter of Aum founder relates misery of life at cult

March 20 marks the 15th anniversary of the release of toxic nerve gas on the Tokyo subway by members of the Aum Supreme Truth cult.

"The last time I saw my father was a rainy June day in 2008," relates Satoka Matsumoto (not her real name), the youngest of four daughters of the cult's founder, in Asahi Geino (March 18).

Satoka's father, Chizuo Matsumoto aka Shoko Asahara, was aged 55 and on death row at the time of her visit. He seemed a different person from the man she knew: When he was arrested in May 1995, she was only six.

"'It's chilly today, are you all right?' I asked him." But conversations during such visits were mostly one way.

"Because of what he did, we, his children, were made to shoulder a heavy burden, so I was hesitant to discuss my own future with my father, a man with no future," she tells the magazine. "I have mixed feelings about him. Naturally I can't forgive myself for feeling this way, but at the same time, I can't stop hating him."

Satoka recalls an incident when she was about 3, during an Aum ceremony, when she begged her father to let her sleep.

"This is a festival for the gods; you must participate," came his reply.

"I burst into tears and his expression suddenly changed," she tells Asahi Geino. "He yanked down my trousers and underpants and whacked my bare bottom several dozen times in front of hundreds of believers. From that moment, my life changed. I felt I could never be a normal girl. This must be the reason why I was afraid to love a man. My love could never break away from my father's shackles."

Satoka relates another incident at the Aum retreat in Yamanashi Prefecture that occurred when she was about 5 years old. Her mother had prepared a vegetable omelet and she was asked to carry it to her father. Unable to keep a grip on the heavy plate, she stumbled and dropped the dish, which broke into fragments on the kitchen floor.

"Make Satoka eat it," her father ordered in a cold voice.

"While my elder sister stood up for me, my mother turned back to the stove to make another omelet."

"'Make her eat it,' he ordered again.

"My oldest sister frantically began to pick up the pieces. I began shoving egg into my mouth and as I chewed, it made crunching sounds. My lasting impression was that to my father, someone's death -- even perhaps his own daughter's -- meant nothing to him."

The true extent of Satoka's father's mania is uncertain. In Kosuge Prison, he masturbated in front of his visiting adolescent daughters. Reacting to the reproachful expression on the girls' faces, the attending guard snapped, "Yamete!" (cut that out!). Asahara halted in mid-stroke but resumed shortly afterward.

At a subsequent visit, however, he murmured her name softly with his right hand cupped next to his mouth, as if confiding a secret.

"From his demeanor at this meeting, I became convinced he was feigning mental illness," she says. "He could recognize who I was, which made me wonder why he wouldn't discuss his crimes. But now, he says nothing. The court rejected his appeal for a retrial, and there's nothing left but to await his execution."

© Japan Today