My Experiences Preceding 5000 Burials

A scarce work of essays by the ostensibly Egyptian spiritualist, performer, and founder of the Coptic Fellowship of America, located in Los Angeles. Recent research has revealed him to be an Italian stage magician named Naldino Bombacci, who came to America as an assistant to another stage magician, Rahman Bey, and copied parts of his act. It was claimed that he could enter into a state of suspended animation. Fellow mystic Swami Yogananda wrote of him in 1927: "Mr. Bey can remain underground, buried for twenty-four hours, sealed in an air-tight casket, and can hold a thousand pounds on his chest. He controls his pulse at will–its beats appeared and completely disappeared at his will. He also pierces his body with long needles without bloodshed. The marks, almost instantaneously disappeared after the needles were withdrawn. He thrusts these needles into his throat, cheeks, and tongue without pain. He can produce blood from one puncture and withhold blood from another. Most of these things he performed right in front of me. In the various cities where he visits he often gives demonstrations before gatherings of eminent physicians and surgeons. In New York City he submitted to burial for three hours. On this occasion his body was sealed in a casket and placed six feet underground. The doctors who were present admitted that they could not explain the feat other than by Hamid Bey’s declaration that by self-imposed catalepsy, he renders his body almost lifeless.".