La dissolution of L’Aube was the aftermath of an armed confrontation in the mountains in 1981, which brought the dissident community to an end and reshaped the public position of the Predecessors. The group’s collapse followed a dispute over land and access to water, but its consequences extended beyond the fighting: the Predecessors publicly disavowed the armed faction, obtained religious-association status, and went on to grow. In the Master’s account, the divergence between L’Aube’s defeat and the Predecessors’ success is central to understanding what the crisis changed—and what it failed to explain.

Causes and Background

L’Aube had emerged from the same broad community as the Predecessors, but the groups had separated over their principles and direction. The Predecessors’ later public account described the split as an outcome of disagreements about management: after debate, the two communities had agreed to pursue different paths. By contrast, L’Aube pursued a radical revolutionary ideal, while the Predecessors presented themselves as a peaceful agricultural community seeking a spiritual life within the law.

The immediate dispute concerned a small river that ran through L’Aube’s land. The neighboring farmers had long used it as a shared irrigation source, but L’Aube refused them access. The disagreement continued for years. When local residents came to complain at the community’s barbed-wire boundary, members of L’Aube assaulted them. The Yamanashi Prefectural Police issued arrest warrants on assault charges and sent officers to the site; instead of a routine response, the arrival of police was met by gunfire.

The Armed Confrontation and Dissolution

The exchange of fire in the mountains was severe, and the account identifies it as the event that led to L’Aube’s dissolution in 1981. The Master later placed the fighting three years before his conversation with Tengo, and four years after Éri had come to live with him. The confrontation thus belonged to the recent history of the communities, but not to the circumstances that had brought Éri to his home.

The crisis also drew official suspicion toward the Predecessors. Although the two groups had formally split, exchanges between them had continued, prompting investigators to ask whether the Predecessors had secretly commissioned L’Aube’s action. The authorities inspected the Predecessors’ extensive grounds for a full day, searching buildings and records and questioning several leaders. They found no evidence to support the theory. The inspection instead encountered orderly farms and maintained equipment, living quarters, a modest but well-equipped medical facility, and a library devoted to Buddhist texts and scholarship. Nothing found during the search indicated weapons or violence.

The Predecessors’ Public Response

Soon after the shooting, the Predecessors issued a public statement through a young, polished spokesperson addressing journalists. The statement insisted that the communities no longer had an organizational connection, that their members had largely ceased visiting one another except for professional reasons, and that the Predecessors had not participated in the incident. It expressed regret for the deaths of police officers and said the association would receive judicial investigators if necessary.

The Predecessors followed the statement with a carefully open presentation of their community. Journalists were invited to visit, move around the grounds, and speak with members; the association asked only that images be limited to those it authorized in order to protect members’ privacy. Its representatives described a religious life based on practical exercises and study rather than a fixed, codified doctrine. They said individual awakenings came first and that shared principles arose afterward, rather than being imposed in advance as dogma. They also described a communal ideal of simple living supported primarily by agriculture, with voluntary contributions playing a part in funding.

Their explanation of the split made the contrast with L’Aube explicit. The Predecessors portrayed the armed faction as having become too dogmatic and cut off from actual society, while presenting themselves as committed to self-criticism, peaceful practice, and greater openness to the outside world. The association denied seeking converts or trying to impose its beliefs. The press largely left with a favorable impression: its members appeared courteous, its meals were modest and made from produce grown on the grounds, and the inspected settlement seemed more like a small university campus than a violent organization.

Aftermath and Unresolved Change

The official break did not end suspicion. Authorities remained uncertain whether the Predecessors had been involved behind the scenes, but their search uncovered no proof. The group’s public account nevertheless helped establish a sharp distinction between its lawful, peaceful identity and L’Aube’s armed radicalism. The account also records a concrete institutional consequence: the Predecessors obtained approval in 1979 to organize as a religious association. In the Master’s later summary, they survived L’Aube’s elimination, prospered, and developed as a religious group; the crisis brought them publicity rather than damage.

That public success did not resolve the Master’s concern about the Predecessors’ transformation. Before Éri’s departure, the community had seemed friendly to the outside world, and local residents had taken to it. Over time it became increasingly isolated: Fukada’s long letters stopped, telephone conversations became difficult, and the Master was eventually refused entry when he tried to speak with him about Éri. A high fence enclosed the grounds, and outsiders were barred. The Master could not determine what had happened within the community or whether Fukada and his wife were still alive. He regarded the armed crisis and L’Aube’s dissolution as occurring after Éri had left, not as the direct cause of her arrival at his door. The divergence matters: the Predecessors publicly presented the dissolution as proof of their separation from violence, even as their growing secrecy remained unexplained to the people closest to their earlier history.