[Notice] AUM Translations Etc.

I've added a list of Other Terrible Projects on the right hand side of the blog. Most of these are old projects that I haven't worked on in a long time, but there's one that's new.

I love cults and learning about cults. As you may be able to guess, I have a particular interest in Japanese cults and new religions. Japan has an incredible array of sects and cults with a dizzying variety of beliefs.

Unfortunately, most of the information available on these groups in English is from secondary sources. You'll get plenty of people writing about these groups, but only very little material by these groups. Even in cases like Happy Science, only a fraction of the group's material has been translated, and the information is often sanitized in the translation process to make it more palatable to foreigners.

So, I bought a bunch of books from notorious Japanese cults and started translating them.

The blog is called AUM Translations, after that most notorious of Japanese cults, Aum Shinrikyo (the sarin gas guys). Since it's just one guy translating in his spare time, updates will occur as time allows. But if you ever wanted to know how a cult like Aum presented itself or why a person might feel persuaded by their arguments, you may enjoy reading along.

My hope is not to spread the teachings of any of these groups per se, but to help students of religion access materials not available anywhere else.

There should be another Strangers in the Land tomorrow, but I wanted to explain what that new link was all about.