River St. Group Runs Massage Clinic

What do the arms race, drug addiction, migraine headaches and prison riots have in common?

Anxiety tension, according to members of the Unidentified Flying Idea (UFI)--and the common solution is release of tension through massage.

UFI runs a clinic in Central Square, where they promote their solution by giving anyone who stops by a massage--free of charge.

According to "Doc" Humes, one of the founders of the clinic, to accept money for a massage is to violate "the rapport that develops in the release of anxiety tension."

Through the clear glass plate windows River St. passers-by can see two or three UFI members massaging the faithful who sit straddling chairs with heads bowed.

Tension release, Rick Spiers '79-4 says, can be a spectacular sight. Some people have had memories of their birth so vivid that they jump into a fetal position and start twisting and turning--recreating their own birth.

This type of superior and total release only happens after several sessions, Spiers said, adding that other "good" releases feature cold sweats or vivid memories of accidents--even of hearing bones break.

The origin of this type of massage can be traced back to the courts of the Chinese Empire. Humes explains. For centuries the technique was ignored, recorded only in the ancient diaries of Imperial court physicians, Humes says.

The technique became known again only after Sun Yat Sen's revolution, Humes adds. He learned of UFI massage when he read in a 1967 edition of the Larousse Encyclopedia that massage combined with liberal hashish use could help cure drug addiction.

In 1967 Humes was running a drug "detoxification center" in Rome. He at first tried to aid heroin addicts with just massage--but with few results. Then he used massage and cannabis--and the results "were spectacular."

The two biggest difficulties UFI faces are the negative associations people have with massage parlors and the "nolo me tangere [don't touch me] syndrome," Humes says.

These obstacles keep serious sufferers of "anxiety syndrome" from accepting UFI treatment, Humes says.

The anxiety tension problem is a nationwide epidemic "as serious as the bubonic plague," Humes says, explaining that a tension epidemic is more frightening "because the symptoms are harder to detect."