David Blaine explained what made him be buried alive by himself publicly for a week with no food. For the unversed, Blaine is well known for reaching an extreme level with his magic. He had earlier done things like holding his breath for seventeen long minutes and standing for thirty-five hours upon a pole. His magic has turned into risky and daring activities from mere card tricks.
Blaine’s Inspiration
Blaine revealed on a podcast episode why he chose to bury himself alive at 68th Street beside the Hudson River. Magic is all about either shuffling cards or bringing a rabbit out suddenly from somewhere for most of us. But Blaine is known for doing insane things. Blaine, at his age of just twenty-five years, buried himself for seven consecutive days in a coffin and had no food to eat.
The magician named Harry Houdini was his inspiration from whom he adapted the trick. Harry was a Hungarian-American stunt performer, escape artist, and magician. Interestingly, Blaine said he didn’t see Harry do the stunt. Even Harry didn’t do it; he died before he could do such a stunt. Blaine saw a poster of Harry being buried alive. According to Blaine, he saw the poster as a child and has loved it since then.
Blaine added more
But Blaine didn’t want to copy Harry Houdini but do something more. He wanted to make the stunt more attractive and unique. So, he chose to perform it in public view. After practicing to sleep inside a coffin, the young magician finally performed the trick with many people present. The coffin was designed so visitors could see Blaine well from outside and had tons of water on its top. An oxygen-inhaling system was provided to the coffin, and he ate nothing for almost two weeks to avoid using the toilet.
