(FORTUNE Magazine) – For Summum Bonum Amen Ra, Oct. 28, 1975, was a very big day--the day the extraterrestrials arrived to teach him the art of mummification. "The first time I saw them, there were about nine of them," says Ra (Claude Nowell in a past life). "They had a very, very, very light blue tone to their skin. They programmed my mind with all of these concepts. They gave me the method."

Not your typical apprenticeship, maybe, but after five years of transgalactic training, Ra patented the process and in 1985 founded Summum, the world's only commercial mummifier. Since then Summum, headquartered in a three-story pyramid in Salt Lake City, has mummified dozens of pets, including a parakeet, a hamster, and Ra's own cat, Oscar. Due to his clients' tenacious hold on life, Ra has yet to graduate to humans, but he's got 137 of them booked.

At Summum, eternity begins with a ritualistic dousing in sacramental wine. Then the two-month mummification process begins in earnest: First, the client is cut open and all of his, her, or its innards are removed, cleaned, and soaked--along with the body--in a special chemical bath. To seal in freshness, everything is coated with polyurethane before the organs are reinstated and the body sewn up. The shellacked cadaver then gets wrapped in silk and placed in a custom casket that's welded shut. Ra says this preserves bodies for thousands of years.

Summum clients certainly deserve nothing less: Entry-level mummification runs about $50,000, bronze casket included; one guy has even committed to a $300,000 platinum-plated, jewel-encrusted shell.

Apparently, though, money is no object. "It just feels right," says Salt Lake City piano teacher Sue Parsons, who has arranged for her own mummification. "It's great to think that maybe thousands of years from now my mummy will be found, and people will be wondering who this was."

--Ed Brown