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By the slopes of Japan's sacred, mountain lies the rural retreat of a sect known as the Aum Supreme Truth. It's here, in this picture postcard setting, that a 20th century nightmare became reality. Three months ago, sarin nerve gas was released on the Tokyo subway during the morning rush hour. Chocking and blinding five and a half thousand people, killing 11.

The attack, we now know, was a part of a much larger plot aimed, no less, at overthrowing the Japanese state and starting a world war.

(singing)

These are the people being held responsible. Six years ago, a near blind acupuncturist, Shoko Asahara, founded the Aum Shinrikyo or Supreme Truth. The religion is a blend of yoga and mysticism, with bits of Buddhist, Hindu and Christian teachings thrown in.

His catchiest sales point though was a claim to levitation.

Recruiting at Japan's top universities, the Aum proved attractive to those disillusion with an academic system which measures people by exams scores rather than individual ability

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With the coming of peace, a new constitution gave Japanese the freedom at last to chose their own religion. They call this period the "rush of the gods". A religious corporations law bestowed generous tax concessions and other privileges, which politicians found they could trade for votes. When the Aum Shinrikyo gained official recognition, it took shelter beneath a well established and corrupt system of patronage.

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In 1990 Asahara and 24 of his followers ran for parliament. Their all dancing all singing campaign became a familiar sight in Tokyo streets, although it left most voters cold.

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They set up in a quiet dairy farming community. The Aum now boasted 10,000 followers throughout Japan, and nearly a thousand settled here at Kamikuishiki.

Inside sect members were undergoing survival training. Chemicals and drugs were used to raise then remove states of anxiety. Other techniques of mind control included hours of chanting and listening to tapes like this.

Shoko Asahara:

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Followers paid thousands of dollars to be blessed by Asahara, to drinks his blood or tea brewed from his hair, and to wear the Aum's trademark headgear fitted with electrodes supposed to transmit the guru's brain waves.

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So how did this Aum member's family react?

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Deprived of sleep and food, and led through ordeals such as immersion in hot baths, some followers died. Their remains were secretly cremated, along with an unknown number of others who were murdered, either for challenging the sect or trying to leave. The loyal ones on the other hand were showered with paris. This Aum video shows members emerging after six days living underground. The shock troops of the coming conflict. The man in the picture was a rocket scientist before joining the cult. He will later head the Aum's foreign office. One of an elite group of doctors, biologists and chemist, with a sprinkling of ex-gangsters who made up the Aum's cabinet.

Asahara's next critical move was in 1992, seen here arriving in Moscow to open a branch of the sect. In the post Cold War confusion, many Russians too were looking for spiritual nourishment. As many as 30,000 joined or three times the cult's Japanese membership. Through charitable donations and it's alleged hefty bribes, Asahara made contacts high in the Russian government. All members reportedly gain permission to train with a Russian paratroop regiment.

Certainly they were able to buy sessions like this filmed near Vladivostok, playing with the deadly toys of a cash strapped military.

From Russia the Aums smuggled home AK-47s to be used as models for their own weapons manufacture. This helicopter bought secondhand for a million dollars was another Russian souvenir.

Also around this time the Aum was gaining members within Japan's own Defence Forces. Soldiers helped steal industrial secrets for research on lazar, biological and nuclear weapons. And formed a commander unit with the idea of assassinating the Emperor and staging a coup d'état.

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In 1993 the AUM began experiments with chemical weapons. Some of the work going on here right in the middle of Downtown Tokyo. Over a period of months residents collected a thousand photographs documenting these plainly non-religious activities, all of which went unchallenged by the authorities.

Awoken at night by a stench of noxious fumes, protesting residents managed to flush out the guru in his Mercedes. But a fortnight would pass before city inspectors followed up their complaints. By then the evidence had been removed, and the Aum were looking for a quieter place to work. They chose this remote sheep station which the sect bought near Leonora in Western Australia.

Asahara came here in September 1993. But here also their activities didn't go unnoticed. Two members were fined by Australian customs for illegal transportation of chemicals. What customs missed hidden inside 30 sake bottles was a prototype of sarin nerve gas which the Aum proceeded to test on sheep at the property.

By the middle of last year the sarin project was well advanced with a huge arsenal of chemicals bought through dummy companies stockpiled at Kamikuishiki. On the building permit this was described as an office block. In fact, it became the centre piece of the cult's doomsday adventure.

The sarin factory was the brain child of a 30 year old chemist, Masami Tsuchiya. This interview was tapped before his arrest.

Masami Tsuchiya:

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He's asked his opinion of Shoko Asahara.

Masami Tsuchiya:

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It had cost $50 million to develop, but sarin was now ready to be used on people here in the city of Matsumoto. The target was this apartment block, the residence of three judges who were hearing a land claim against the Aum.

This simulation shows how nerve gas released that night from a car park enveloped the neighbourhood, killing seven people and putting hundreds in hospital.

It came through the garden of Yoshiyuki Kouno, who raised the alarm.

Yoshiyuki Koun:

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Kouno son's wife has been crippled for life.

Yoshiyuki Koun:

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The police remained paralysed but by now many ordinary citizens were in open conflict with the cult.

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Here an Aum member who kidnapped her father in order to have him sign over the family estate, tries to stop him blowing the whistle on the sect. Others including former members also began to go public describing the Aum's method of extortion.

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With her brother's help, she escaped and went into hiding. When he in turn was kidnapped and murder, the Aum left evidence even the Japanese police couldn't overlook.

In March, they finally decided to raid Kamikuishiki. But three days before Asahara received a tip off and ordered a preemptive strike.

Parcels of liquid sarin wrapped together with a solvent that turns it into gas, are distributed to a dozen Aum commanders. Next morning, they board trains packed with commuters. Choosing subway lines which converge on Tokyo's central government district. Just after eight O'clock, the bundles are placed in the carriages. And the deadly cocktail mixed at the point of an umbrella.

With that inhuman act Japan was plunged into a state of insecurity not experienced for decades. With its belated spectacle of police power. A ghastly revenge murder caught in the glare of national television. An attempted assassination of the country's police chief, and more gas attacks, including one near disaster involving a cyanide parcel planted inside this major station.

Shoko Asahara is now under arrest saying very little. Some of his lieutenant though are proving more cooperative, and the story we have is based on their reported confessions.

Japan is no longer the same. Sarin, a weapon too horrible even for nations at war, has been used by Japanese against fellow Japanese. The close feeling of identification which holds this complex society together, that human chemistry has gone terribly array.