January 7, 2005
Source: Yahoo! News
Wire Service: AFP
On January 7, 2005 Agence France-Presse reported, "Tibetan refugees arrived in this town which bore the brunt of last week's killer tsunamis to counsel and treat displaced villagers, saying they 'owed' it to India. However in a bizarre twist, the Buddhist monks have been trained by controversial US-based Scientologists in a technique called 'Assist' which talks people out of focusing on a particular event. Villagers housed at relief camps here seem unaware of the unusual combination that brought the monks in to talk to them through a translator and to apply massage to ease their pains. The Buddhists massaged the hands, neck, heads and legs patients suffering from injuries."