Paris, Aug. 15, 1925. A fakir, Tahra Bey, is now astonishing Paris with his amazing performances.
He inflicts himself with sword wounds, which heal in the short space of twenty minutes, and from which blood flows or does not flow according to his desires.
He can also bury himself alive for a lengthy period without any apparent ill results.
Before arriving in Paris he had penetrated the most exclusive Italian circles.
Mussolini watched him, the diplomatic corps watched, and King Victor Emmanuel expressed a desire to see him.
Tahra Bey, a handsome Egyptian, twenty-eight years of age, is the son of a fakir and philosopher.
As a boy he went to Constantinople to study medicine and native lore. He demonstrates his strange powers by lacerating his arms and legs with knives, broken glass, and pins, controlling the flow of blood.
His pulse accelerates or slows down as he pleases, and he can easily escape from the worries of life by relapsing into a cataleptic trance, from which he awakes at option.
The fakir can even go without air. The Italian police in Rome refused to let him make the experiment for longer than thirty minutes. He was placed in a zinc coffin, which was carefully sealed and immersed in water.