The Secret Truth Behind David Blaine's "Magic"

most people live their lives with the belief that magic isn't real David Blaine is commonly known as one of the most iconic magicians in modern times but simplifying David's stunts Illusions and performances as just magic gives the assumption that it's all fake however standing in a block of ice for three days being submerged in water for seven days and being trapped in a glass box for 44 days were all very real stunts that thousands of people witness with their own two eyes yet still some are not convinced he has been called a fake a fraud a Jester and they do anything to invalidate his work despite the annoying critics and borderline physical torture David Blaine continued to up the ante throughout his career but why well because he feels most alive when he is just about to die and this is how he continuously chased that feeling magicians have always been entertainers who perform in front of an audience with the intention to bend their minds typically they sport a flashy outfit a big stage with lights smoke machine gains and additional performers to create a spectacular experience worthy of a 100 plus dollar ticket price their tricks can be long and drawn out constantly diverting your attention all over the stage the audience oohing and eyeing the performance crescendos to the Abracadabra or voila moment that sends the overstimulated audience into an uproar of Applause however David Blaine was the total opposite of this David wore a plain shirt and sweats he was emotionless in the face and gave small focused crowds of people Magic on the street for free he primarily did card tricks and some quarter tricks where he encouraged people to pay attention as closely as possible the tricks were nothing spectacular but what made it interesting were the reactions of the people what what over Blaine performed for all walks of life all Races all ages and the outcome was always the same being utterly confused or shocked by something they saw with their own two eyes his simplistic approach made other magicians hate him when Blaine landed his first Prime Time television show on ABC in 1997 he was immediately met with criticism a New York Times article was released that insinuated the virtually unknown Street magician was only given a special because he had friends in some very high places One professional magician insisted Blaine's best tricks could be found for about thirty dollars at a Time Square magic shop Jamie Ian Swiss a magician and columnist for Genie Magic magazine said his only skill is removing money from a wallet and handing it to a person behind the counter Swiss asserted that ABC Executives had the wool pulled over their eyes it also didn't help that in his first major interview on Conan he was so nervous he messed up his card trick his first mistake was when he made this extremely choppy pass you can see him move the deck from Back to Front then he attempts to do a double lift which is when he grabs two cards and makes you think he only grabbed one but he struggled while trying to grab two luckily he recovered and most people would never notice the errors Blaine had no interest in addressing the criticism they were likely just hating on him and he simply wanted to make magic accessible to as many people as possible David was inspired by the great Harry Houdini who brought magic to people on the streets plus we have the benefit of hindsight now and we know that the traditional magic show aged like milk and street performances or interviews is a format that remains extremely relevant 25 years later on Tick Tock the number one app in the world however card tricks were not enough to keep David going he wanted to push himself to Greater limits put his life on the line to prove he is truly One of a Kind which led to his first major public stunt being buried alive for a week straight Harry Houdini actually performed at least three variations of the stunt during his career David was mesmerized by a poster of the final version of this stunt that Houdini never got to complete due to his early death Houdini was going to escape after being strapped in a straight jacket sealed in a casket and then buried in a large tank filled with sand so I I stare at I love that poster since I was a kid it's like in the magic books you see that poster initially his friend and founder of The Conjuring Arts Research Center Bill kalush suggested that Blaine faked the stunt and discreetly sneak out of the coffin then return a month later before the resurrection but Blaine had no interest in faking so he bought a casket put it in his living room and practiced sleeping in it then he practiced fasting for multiple days he said he was able to do this for four days straight with no problem so his goal was one week buried alive in a glass casket so anyone could come and watch him on April 5th 1999 the 45th president of the United States Donald Trump gave the final send-off as David Blaine entered the see-through coffin that also had six tons of water on top Blaine didn't eat for two weeks before the stunt but continue continue drinking water prior to and during the stun oxygen was transferred in and out through holes above his head a catheter was inserted into Blaine's bladder to safely drain any urine Spectators would come and go whenever they wanted he said people would shine flashlights on him at 2 am to make sure he was really in there he said one of the hardest parts of the stunt was peeing while people were looking at him but I saw something truly truly credible together smiling and that made all of this worker critics said that he had a trap door on the side of the coffin that led to another secret underground room with more space food and magazines to keep him entertained while a body double took his place inside the coffin they often pointed to the water being on top as unnecessary and was only there to distort people's Vision so they couldn't tell the difference between him and the body double and honestly these are decent critiques but David was about to endure something far more dangerous than the buried a live stun something that would be significantly harder to invalidate but first let me tell you about today's sponsor Aura have you ever Googled your name and seen yourself on one of those strange sites that has way too much information about you it feels pretty weird I'd rather have that stuff not available to just anyone who's looking for it data Brokers are making so much money selling your information to robocallers and spammers luckily Aura can find the data Brokers that are sharing your information and these Brokers are legally required to remove your information you ask them but they make it very difficult to do so that's where Aura comes in and submits opt out requests on your behalf you can try Aura for free for two weeks using my link aura.com patrickcc Aura also does so much more to protect you anti-virus VPN password manager Identity Theft Protection credit monitoring and much more and the best part is you get everything at one affordable price let Aura protect you and keep your information safe online you can let people continue to exploit you and profit off your private information or you can go to aura.com patrickcc to start your two week free trial link in the description thanks Aura in the year 2000 Blaine set out to remain Frozen in a block of ice in the middle of Times Square for 72 hours after training for a year with ice cold water Blaine believed he was ready to endure a stunt he called Frozen in Time lightly dressed in a long sleeve t-shirt some pants and a beanie Blaine began shivering as blocks of ice were placed around him a tube supplied him with air and water while his urine was removed with another 2 the ice was transparent and resting on an elevated platform to show that he was actually inside the ice the entire time during the stunt Blaine couldn't sleep because touching the ice with any part of his body for a long period of time would have caused frostbite around hour 55 his eyes went out and he started hallucinating saying that he was talking to imaginary people and they were talking back and spiders were crawling all over him but he knew he was in serious trouble when he thought a few hours had passed when in reality only one minute had passed I was convinced that I was dead and she could no longer see me as the crowd shouts let him out the assistants decide to set him free despite David's demands to not let him out before the 72-hour goal under any circumstance Blaine was ultimately confined in the box of ice for 63 hours 42 minutes and 15 seconds before being removed with chainsaws he nearly died in that ice but he just as easily could have died from shock after he exited the ice he was immediately taken to the hospital for treatment it took one month to fully recover he said he couldn't move his feet for weeks but this time the critics were silenced there was no way to fake this whether you saw it on TV or in real life you knew this was as real as it gets oh no [Applause] David told himself that he would never attempt a stunt of this difficulty in the future but is yearning to face death would creep up again just two years later Blaine swallowed a live snake and fantasized about doing you know what from the Brooklyn Bridge or dangling from a skyscraper nothing was too risky for him and each stun had an increased amount of danger to keep it interesting vertigo which accompanied an hour-long film was extremely risky but also beautifully artistic in the middle of Manhattan Blaine stood Atop A two foot wide pillar nearly 10 stories tall in New York City for two days and two nights with no food no water no sleep and nothing to sit or lean on this is one of his most underrated performances 99.99 of us could not even stand for 35 hours straight let alone being 100 feet in the air constantly battling the wind there was no safety net or precaution set in place in case he fell but the beautiful part about this stunt was its impact on the people thousands of New Yorkers halted their hectic strenuous lives just to look up at David I think one of the most profound things you could do in Midtown Manhattan is stand still let alone for any length of time you know to stand still for for hours upon hours a day and a half in fact this is a profound gesture for New York right now as David put his mind and body on the line he began hallucinating which caused the buildings and structures around him to look like animal heads then at the last hour David jumped off the pillar not on a cushy airbag but rather a pile of empty cardboard boxes and he somehow executed the jump perfectly David was not just some lunatic adrenaline junkie he was a performance artist who sacrificed his well-being For Your Entertainment he even refused to get into personal relationships I know that if I had kids I wouldn't want to put them through the feeling that their father's in danger which is why I am reluctant to get into a relationship and think about that right now this led to so many people wondering why why is he constantly putting his life on the line is it really for the sake of magic well the motivation behind all of David's stunts is actually much darker than we thought and we learned this while he was preparing for his 2003 stun above the below where he'd be confined in a three feet by seven feet by seven feet transparent Plexiglas box suspended 30 feet in the air in the middle of London his goal was to stay in this box for over a month I also consider it something that for me is like the ultimate truth when you live with nothing there's no distractions you're just there as you are struggling I think that's the purest State you can be in Blaine later expressed how he loved the idea of death and hated life so these stunts really make me feel great and I love making people watch suffering because I had to watch it my whole life watch people I loved and were close to deteriorate and die I saw everybody I knew my mother my father dropped dead I feel the most alive when I'm going through these experiences that was pretty dark there isn't much information about David's personal life and childhood Hood we know he was raised by a single mother he says his father was never in his life his mother was his first fan he spent his days as a 10 year old reading Magic books practicing tricks and Performing them for her and her friends at 15 she developed cancer so his magic became her Escape when he was 17 he moved out of their New Jersey home and ventured into the Big Apple sadly just three years later she passed away we know today that David is a very positive forward-thinking and happy man but for the most of his career he had an extremely dark presence it's unclear if his Persona is just an act or if it really is him wearing his demons on his sleeve but either way if he didn't survive his next stunt Blaine wanted to be remembered as the greatest showman of all time in September of 2003 Blaine sealed himself Inside the Box a webcam was also installed inside the box to observe his progress over 44 days despite Blaine clearly partaking in this endurance stun and he became skeptical with some theorizing that he used Holograms or body doubles people were also suspicious regarding his starvation claiming his water supply was laced with nutritional glucose and sodium supplements which he adamantly denied David wasn't prepared for the hostility that came with being in a foreign country Blaine was pelted with eggs and paint-filled balloons golf balls were also struck in his direction from Tower Bridge tabloids who were skeptical of his performance took the opportunity to Stage barbecues beneath Blaine and even flew hamburgers up to his box using a remote controlled helicopter to taunt him one man even attempted to sever the pipe that was supplying him with water but don't get me wrong the support definitely outshined the hate and they kept his spirits High until the stun eventually ended after 44 days [Music] [Applause] David Works closely with scientists and health professionals to study the human body through his performances a lot of the time they end up with more questions and answers the New England Journal of Medicine published a paper documenting his 44-day fast and stating his refeeding process was perhaps the most dangerous part of the stun Blaine only drank distilled water during his time in the Box the water lacked important minerals or vitamins in the hospital he was injected with an IV to replenish his system however his body almost went into shock which nearly killed him the study reported that he lost 24.5 kilograms or 54 pounds which was 25 percent of his original body weight and his body mass index dropped from 29 to 21.6 ironically though it was David's biggest failure that got him the most attention his failure came from attempting to break the world record for holding his breath underwater as a young magician I was obsessed with Houdini and his underwater challenges so I began early on competing against the other kids by the time I was a teenager I was able to hold my breath for 3 minutes and 30 seconds I would later find out that was Houdini's personal record to grasp how long he could realistically hold his breath Blaine met with a top neurosurgeon who informed Blaine that anything over six minutes could have the risk of hypoxic brain damage he took this as a challenge he began researching Pearl divers and discovered various aspects of freediving the first thing that he learned is when you're holding your breath you should never move because that wastes energy and depletes oxygen since physical movement builds up CO2 in your blood he also learned how to purge which is when you repeatedly blow air in and out rapidly after a while you get light-headed and start feeling tingly because you're ridding your body of CO2 making it easier to hold your breath for months he did this every morning I would wake up and hold my breath for 48 minutes out of the course of every hour I'd breathe for a minute hold my breath for five minutes immediately after and then right after that breathe a minute hold for six minutes and keep going for all the way up to an hour in that process your CO2 levels become so high your body has to work like a marathon runner to get rid of it by the and his brain was completely fried and suffered awful migraines he also lost 50 pounds in three months when he learned that the thinner he was the longer he could hold his breath by eating so well and training hard his resting heart rate dropped to 38 beats per minute which is lower than most Olympic athletes Blaine figured he could place a water tank at Lincoln Center in New York City and if he stayed there a week without eating he would get comfortable in that environment ultimately slowing down his metabolism which would help him hold his breath for longer but he was wrong Blaine entered the sphere for a week before the scheduled air date but producers confronted him and told him that just watching somebody holding their breath and almost drowning would be too boring for television in response Blaine added handcuffs which he planned to escape from I'll have to escape from all these chains and if not I will drown and the world will see something pretty insane Blane was submerged underwater and remained there for seven days while attached to a breathing apparatus he underestimated how painful his hands would be after they shriveled up when seven days had passed Blaine attached the chains and handcuffs removed his oxygen tube and then it attempted to escape while holding his breath for longer than anyone in recorded history however because of the movement Blaine was wasting oxygen after he passed the seven minute threshold he began having convulsions and gradually blacked out Kirk crack his trainer and a diving expert sent divers to release him and pull him from the tank he failed to beat the record and doubters all over the world celebrated his defeat but he allowed researchers at Yale to examine him after the stun to see what they could learn about how the body responds to an underwater environment which he saw as a big victory now faced with a failure more people than ever were tuned in and wanted to see what he had in store so he got in contact with Oprah and announced he wanted to up the ante on her show he wanted to hold his breath longer than any human in recorded history which was set at 13 minutes at the time Oprah gave Blaine four months to prepare and train and in those four months someone came and actually upped the record to 16 and a half minutes and we know that David takes his training very seriously but when it came time to do this stunt things started going wrong Blaine wanted to do the challenge face down floating on the pool but for TV they wanted him to be upright so they could see his face the other problem was that the suit was so buoyant that he had to strap his feet in to keep him from floating it made him extremely nervous raising his heart rate on top of that they wanted to add a heart rate monitor the monitor was placed right outside the sphere meaning every time his heart would beat he'd hear loud beep noises which made him even more nervous normally his heart rate would start at 38 beats per minute and while holding his breath it would drop to 12 beats per minute this time it started at 120 beats and it never went down he became more nervous increasing his heart rate up to 150 Beats at 8 minutes he was 100 certain he would not be able to complete the mission for the sake of Oprah's show and his unwillingness to fail he would fight until he blacked out at minute 12 he started to have ringing in his ears and simultaneously his arm began to go numb he was showing signs of a heart attack at 13 minutes he started feeling pains all over his chest at 15 minutes he was suffering major O2 deprivation to the heart his heartbeat would go from 120 to 50 to 150 to 40 to 20 to 150 again a 16 minutes Blaine cautiously slid his feet out of the straps to make it easier for The Rescuers to take him out if he suffered a heart attack then suddenly he heard screaming he realized he had just made it to 1632 and broke the record so with the energy of everybody that was there he kept pushing and he went for 17 minutes and four seconds live on Oprah he broke a world record which got him middle-aged woman level Fame David Blaine was known all around the world and he started to get cocky which led to easily his worst stun ever in September 2008 Blaine announced his upside down man performance Blaine aimed to hang upside down from a crane for 60 hours without food or sleep for the entire two and a half days doctors would be present to monitor Blaine throughout the stunt but warned that increased blood pressure raised the risk of stroke or blindness while gravity could restrict the blood flow to his lower extremities come September 22nd Blaine began to stun wearing a safety harness attached to a crossbar he dangled by his feet from a large steel scaffold hanging over New York Central Park however early into the stun bystanders began emailing news sources claiming blame wasn't hanging upside down is suggested about once an hour he has to come down for a medical check to stretch and to relieve himself he rested by standing on a platform for 10 minutes per hour before being hoisted back up the frequent breaks he took where he was seen standing upright caused people to say he was cheating Blaine continued with the stunt despite the negative reception but it got even worse on the final day of the stun thousands of fans came to witness Blaine's dive of death which he said would be the coolest thing he's ever done if everything were to go as planned Blaine planned to end his 60-hour stint hanging upside down with a 44-foot plunge to the ground but the scheduled finale was interrupted by a 15-minute delay the anticipation built nobody knew what was going to happen but it was being hyped up in that time Blaine claimed the wind picked up and producers of his TV special advised him against the spectacular ending he eventually just jumped [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign the crowd didn't know if the stunt was actually performed which led to this extremely anti-climactic situation where he was caught mid-air then awkwardly dangled above the ground for a minute before being slowly carried away into the night sky the New York daily news ridiculed blame with the headline give us a break they said that there were more booze than cheers as the stun ended Blaine accepted responsibility for the outcome disappointing fans I knew that it didn't work right when all my friends called me up and said wait what happened I'm confused this prompted a little break for David he was world famous now and made some decent money from his movies and his book he became a go-to talent for celebrity birthday parties corporate events Charities he didn't want to rush anything to avoid another catastrophe plus something amazing happened in 2011 he had his first child Dessa with his then girlfriend Alize David always said that if he had a wife or child his performances would slow down and that's exactly what happened okay maybe just one more because being electrocuted was something he always wanted to do becoming a dad it changes you you now have a purpose in life I think differently about what I'm doing and this time we have a very serious team and I feel very confident that I'll pull this off and be perfectly fine at the end with the help of the Liberty Science Center a chainmail suit and an enormous array of Tesla electrical coils he planned to stand atop a 20-foot High pillar for 72 hours without sleep or food while being subjected to a million volts of electricity flame prepared for the stun at home where he practiced giving himself mild electrical shocks nobody's ever been in the middle of a lightning storm for 72 hours so it's hard to predict what's going to happen the chainmail suit commonly known as a faraday suit has been designed so that the current would go through the suit and not through his body Blaine's only real physical challenge was standing still in a heavy suit for three days which we all know is a piece of cake for him he did suffer a little zap during the event [Music] thank you oh what was that but he recovered very quickly although the stunt looked incredibly dangerous it was more of a visual art piece than an insane endurance stunt especially compared to his previous work the event was broadcasted Live on YouTube entitled electrified viewers located in London Beijing Tokyo and Sydney had the opportunity to take turns controlling which of the seven coils were turned on and at what intensity they could also play music by producing different notes from the coils the event had various entertainers and gave off the vibe of a festival or a big party everything went as planned and Blaine completed the stun after spending three days and three nights standing in the middle of one million volts of electric currents at New York's Pier 54. afterwards he could walk with assistance speak and engage with others before being taken to a hospital to be examined David successfully cheated death on multiple different stunts for 15 years it was time to go back to his roots in 2013 Blaine starred in a 90-minute ABC television special titled David Blaine real or magic he ventured Across America from New York to Los Angeles and visited tons of A-list celebrities like Robert De Niro Jamie Foxx Ricky Gervais Katy Perry Kanye West Michael Phelps President George W bush among many others in 2016 he had another special titled Beyond magic they followed the same formula as the last and featured another wide range of celebrities funny enough it was these clips that made the rounds on social media that made him extremely famous to gen Z they probably don't even know him from his performance art but rather his sticking a needle through his arm or putting an ice pick through his hand by the way both of these tricks aren't really tricks he just performed it so many times until he built up enough Scar Tissue so he wouldn't bleed same thing with him eating glass there's no trick he is just eating glass oh and making frogs magically appear out of his mouth while he has to fast for 36 hours so he has no food digesting in his system then he drinks multiple gallons of water so the frogs have a safe place to live in his stomach he swallows them he can keep them there for as long as three hours while he does other things then he can force them up his esophagus and freak out his audience as they come out of his mouth his final stunt in 2020 consisted of him strapping his hand to a cluster of 52 helium filled balloons using a harness he ascended nearly 25 000 feet into the sky before he released the balloons and free fell for a couple of seconds before deploying a parachute to slow his descent easily the most beautiful visual performance he has ever created and it was all dedicated to his daughter at one point the world was convinced we were going to watch David Blaine die performing he probably thought he would too it seems like he wouldn't have even cared as long as he secured his legacy as the greatest performer of all time now he has a daughter to take care of and a mission to keep magic alive he has inspired a whole new generation of magicians on Tick Tock I feel like I am constantly seeing people perform magic tricks on the for you page and if you think about it Mr Beast has used David Blaine's formula to become successful buried alive starving himself 24 hours in ice however Mr Beast is pretty transparent about it being for views money and entertainment rather than straight up endurance art it's sad that many people still to this day do not see the greatness in David's career they try to find anything to negate the validity of his performances it's like a constant puzzle they feel like they need to figure out as we all know magicians never reveal their secrets and the real secret is how David survived his performances throughout the years I'm not sure how but I'm really glad he did

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Id: pKCnd3T5eMA

Length: 25min 30sec (1530 seconds)

Published: Mon May 22 2023