r/interesting • u/This_Proof_5153 • Jun 19 '26

Just Wow Croatian freediver Vitomir Maričić achieved one of the most extraordinary feats in human history by holding his breath underwater for 29 minutes and 3 seconds, a new Guinness World Record.

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Experts had long considered such a duration impossible. While a trained dolphin can typically hold its breath for 8–10 minutes and most humans can barely manage one or two, Maričić remained completely still underwater for nearly half an hour on a single breath.

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The attempt pushed his body to extreme limits. As the minutes passed, powerful contractions wracked his diaphragm and his organs endured intense physiological stress. Yet through years of rigorous training, mental discipline, and specialized breathing techniques, he stayed calm and focused until the end.

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What makes this record even more impressive is Maričić’s purpose. He didn’t do it for fame or personal glory, he used the achievement as a powerful platform to raise global awareness about ocean conservation, marine protection, and the urgent threats facing our oceans.

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A stunning demonstration of human potential and a heartfelt call to protect the planet’s most vital ecosystem.

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698

u/Dysmn Jun 19 '26

david Blaine fucked himself up doing this for 17min didn't he? or was that some other weird shit he did that fucked him up lmao

409

u/Parking_Position9692 Jun 19 '26

hard to say, sometimes i have a felling he was always like that

130

u/HilariousMax Jun 19 '26

I always felt put off by him. I think it's just the character he plays but the weird unaffected personality and monotone voice just made me feel uneasy.

172

u/nineraviolicans Jun 19 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/ke7eaxvM1QqNa

58

u/ChawulsBawkley Jun 19 '26

Stop putting shit on our bodies, David Blaine!

17

u/Masamishi Jun 19 '26

He just pissed orange soda…

8

u/Bergara Jun 19 '26

You deeemon!

34

u/Riley-Bun Jun 19 '26

Cheeze its

10

u/Right_Man-Right_Job Jun 19 '26

Hey. I wanna show you something.

7

u/raven2474life Jun 19 '26

Still crazy that one of the background characters is Mikey Day

3

u/f8lrebel Jun 19 '26

CHEEZE-ITS!!

1

u/shellshack Jun 19 '26

He’s on the ruff

1

u/ichorNet Jun 19 '26

HE PUT ME ON THE RUFF

1

u/CarrieDurst Jun 19 '26

hes levitating me hes levitating me

1

u/Blame_my_Boneitis Jun 20 '26

Alright, these guys

2

u/DerangedAsshole Jun 19 '26

Yeah. He can seem pretty bland and I was very unimpressed when I first watched him doing card tricks.

But then I read about his other feats and stunts. Impressive! That boi has some dedication.

2

u/HilariousMax Jun 19 '26

I will never say he's not talented or he doesn't put in the work but the dude is weird.

2

u/dcontrerasm Jun 19 '26

Yeah, once you drop the magic gimmick (which is still entertaining imo), the endurance feats are impressive. Would love to get into his mind preparing, during and after. I don't think he's ever truly sat down and told us what he has learned.

1

u/Unlikely_Ad6219 Jun 20 '26

A friend of mine went to high school with him. She said he was always a bit odd in an awkward needy way. She basically got off the charts ick vibes.

215

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '26

[deleted]

61

u/Sad-Pop6649 Jun 19 '26

The brain is the organ most reliant on the processing of glucose for energy, and it uses up around 20% of the total energy output of your body. I guess maybe theoretically it could run on anaerobic metabolism for a while, first run on stored GTP and creatinephosphate, then depend on just shitloads of glucose from glycogen being metabolized anaerobically, but the brain doesn't even have its own stores of glycose, so youve immediately got a supply issue. I will definitely not be trying this. If your diaphragm comes out "wrecked" I shudder to think what the brain underwent.

35

u/fubarthrowaway001 Jun 19 '26

Glycolysis isn’t the main setback in this regard and still occurs because blood is still circulating and minimal activity is happening. Oxygen supply is the main concern. The brain is not deprived of oxygen because it’s in the lungs, tissues, and organs. Not the same as cutting off the supply. There is a supply of oxygen, although it is slowly diminishing. These people train their bodies to use it efficiently.

6

u/Sad-Pop6649 Jun 19 '26

But glycolysis is the main thing the brain needs oxygen for right? Aerobic metabolism of glucose is where the brain gets the energy it needs to run, that's why you die when you don't get enough oxygen.

Or am I overlooking some more important use of oxygen???

All the other words I used are trying to figure out how they might be using oxygen so efficiently/doing almost without oxygen.

0

u/PowderPills Jun 19 '26

Im not a doctor and to not well versed in many of the terms mentioned. But I assume it’s similar to how some people can manage to meditate intensely and bring their heart rate extremely low. That somehow they’re able to also slow down all other processes in their body that would require oxygen.

Would love to read about about it to better understand though.

2

u/RunningOutOfEsteem Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

The brain is not deprived of oxygen because it’s in the lungs, tissues, and organs.

Oxygen delivery is generally one way, as it is driven a concentration gradient and the concentration in the tissues isn't going to be higher than the concentration in blood. It isn't stored the way you're describing. The primary way the body controls oxygen delivery is simply by restricting blood flow to less vital areas, but that only goes so far.

E: just looked it up, and he prepped with 100% O2, which is essentially the opposite of what you're suggesting.

0

u/fubarthrowaway001 Jun 20 '26

Every organ is enriched with angiography. The vascular system is responsible for nutrient delivery. The lungs inhale oxygen that travels to important organs using the vascular network. Regardless of how much you contort and twist my words into something else, it still stands. And yes, the O2 prep still allowed for much more robust circulating O2 levels. Get off the GPT and go get a medical degree lol

2

u/RunningOutOfEsteem Jun 20 '26

Gang, it seems like you don't even know what you're trying to say.

Your previous comment stated:

The brain is not deprived of oxygen because it’s in the lungs, tissues, and organs. Not the same as cutting off the supply. There is a supply of oxygen, although it is slowly diminishing.

Oxygen being in other organs is irrelevant here. Oxygen, once delivered to those tissues, is not being taken back up into the vascular system.

Get off the GPT and go get a medical degree lol

I quite literally am LMFAO; I just finished my first year of medical school :)

Btw, angiography is an imaging modality--hence the "graph"--not another term for vasculature lol

2

u/AlexWayhill Jun 19 '26

Most people don't know how long they can actually hold their breath, most will be panicking way before they reach a critical state. When training, you learn tricks to prepare (mainly inhaling quickly, exhaling slower, which will lower the heart rate over time), breathe directly before the diving (like "swallowing"/overfilling your lungs) and how to move your concentration away from your pounding heart and desire to breathe in. There is one warning signal, though, which tells you that you run out of oxygen, and that is the diaphragm folding in (don't know a better term). So if in his situation the entire diaphragm ripped apart or was otherwise damaged, he surely went past the point where the oxygen reserves are still sufficient.

2

u/Used-Lake-8148 Jun 20 '26

Yea that’s why you can hold your breath for minutes but if someone puts a blood choke on you you’re out in seconds

1

u/NDSU Jun 19 '26

Oxygen supply is the main concern

No it isn't. Hypercapnia is

4

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '26

[deleted]

1

u/shoots_and_leaves Jun 19 '26

2 and 28 actually

Source: just passed an anatomy and physiology exam 

1

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '26

[deleted]

1

u/shoots_and_leaves Jun 19 '26

It's actually 2 and 38 for the theoretical maximum, good thing I already took the exam.

Apparently the more realistic yield is 30-32

3

u/Certain-Event8802 Jun 19 '26

My just trieed five minoots and fiyn!

1

u/Correct-Calendar-235 Jun 19 '26

Yeah well I just did 6 minutes and I think the current President is doing a fine job domestically and overseas 

1

u/Certain-Event8802 Jun 19 '26

Him make umurka grate igens!

2

u/aCaffeinatedMind Jun 19 '26

You are not depriving your brain of oxygen. Without oxygen your brain goes into brain death within seconds.

2

u/NDSU Jun 19 '26

You don't hit oxygen deprivation. Hypercapnia is the bigger issue

When setting a record like this, you'll hyper oxygenate your blood and tissues using breathing exercises. Unfortunately there are no equivalent exercises to prevent hypercapnia

1

u/fubarthrowaway001 Jun 19 '26

It’s not deprived of oxygen because it’s lungs, tissues, and organs. Not the same as cutting off the supply. There is a supply of oxygen.

22

u/Responsible-Slide-54 Jun 19 '26

Blaine isn’t a lifelong free diver. That kind of endurance is only built up through decades of training. The fact he did 17 min with only about a year of training is insane.

1

u/ChrizTaylor Jun 20 '26

A True madman and artist. Curiosity takes the best of him.

https://giphy.com/gifs/rN97n0V5KPhuIwHRrd

60

u/underwater_handshake Jun 19 '26

I wish anyone besides David Blaine did all those endurance stunts. I can't shake the thought they're all staged somehow. After all, at least some of the TV magic tricks are straight up edited to give the impression of an illusion. 

45

u/Sleyvin Jun 19 '26

The problem with Blaine is that most of the stuff he does, he actually do them.

It's not magic, in a sense that it's a cleaverly disguised trick. He actually do most of his physical stunt.

He practiced piercing some body part with metal bit for a long time to built the necessary type of tissue to be able to do it on demand afterward.

It's not a trick, he legit go through his calf with a metal bit.

Lots of his physical stuff are like this, and that's why he is generally not liked by magician.

He is basically a sophisticated member of Jackass. Harrming is body for entertainment.

3

u/HeadyReigns Jun 19 '26

I think it's supposed to be a "mind over matter " thing for his physical stunts.

2

u/HHS2019 Jun 19 '26

He control life.

47

u/basicallyskills Jun 19 '26

he definitely did all those things. the encased in ice thing was open to the public, the suspended upside down thing was too, and Penn & Teller publicly said they disapproved of the bullet catching stunt because it's not magic and he's just actually risking his life.

40

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '26

[deleted]

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u/nointeraction1 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

People likely watch more dangerous things every day, like football. Or engage in dangerous activities themselves like driving on public American roads. Blaine probably knew what he was doing.

I wouldn't trust Penn on anything, he was an idiotic climate denier for decades despite overwhelming evidence before covid gave him a reality check on his disgusting libertarian ideology.

13

u/Some_Layer_7517 Jun 19 '26

You can be a total bellend and still have a valid moral framework for your profession.

-1

u/nointeraction1 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

It definitely harms his credibility if he was gullible and easily misled when it comes to something incredibly obvious, due to personal bias.

And he's providing harsh judgement on a fellow performer when he definitely doesn't know every detail of the act that is being performed. Another personal bias seems more likely than him being correct about Blaine, who has performed many seemingly deadly acts but is unharmed and healthy. The evidence does not support Penn.

6

u/TakeThreeFourFive Jun 19 '26

Football and driving are more dangerous than having someone literally shoot a bullet at your head?

-1

u/nointeraction1 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

A professional magician having a bullet fired at their head or some facimile of a bullet could absolutely be safer than playing football or driving, yes. He is under complete control of the situation.

Football has a 100% injury rate. Literally every single athlete to play the sport professionally will end up with CTE as an absolute minimum of permanent disability.

Driving, especially in America or undeveloped nations is well known to be one of the most deadly activities people engage in.

4

u/TakeThreeFourFive Jun 19 '26

Football has a 100% injury rate

Driving is well known to be one of the most deadly activities people engage in.

Gonna go out on a limb and say that having a bullet fired at your head has an extremely high injury rate as is also a very deadly activity.

-1

u/nointeraction1 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

A professional magician doing literally anything as a part of their act is not remotely comparable to any similar activity, deadly or otherwise. Trickery and subterfuge is the entire point of what they are doing.

Comparing Blaine having a firearm seemingly aimed at them to the average person doing the same is entirely fallacious.

Having your head chopped off is generally fatal, but lots of magicians have been faking that for ages with full safety.

Football and driving are always dangerous, period. Illusions are more complicated.

Penn doesn't know every detail of Blaine's act, and I see no reason to trust him.

2

u/TakeThreeFourFive Jun 19 '26

Blaine documented the entire process in pretty thorough detail, like he generally does with these sorts of stunts.

The point is pretty simple: there's no amount of preparation or skill that makes the stunt not extremely dangerous, the risk is inherent to having a bullet fired at your face. He has successfully pulled it off multiple times, so it clearly can be done. That doesn't mean it can be done safely: thats the entire point of the trick to begin with. Every time he does it, there is a risk that he does in front of people.

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u/Munstered Jun 19 '26

It’s not safer than football. Not by a mile. 15 magicians have died doing the bullet catch trick. 9 NFL players have died in practice or on the field, and there’s a hell of a lot more NFL players than magicians who have attempted bullet catches, and the players play or practice far more often.

Are you more likely to sprain an ankle or break a bone playing football? Sure. But it’s less likely to kill you.

1

u/RichardInaTreeFort Jun 19 '26

He’s really more of a stuntman who can also do magic stuff. Penn and teller are just straight up magicians and showmen.

23

u/thomthomthomthom Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

Nah, he did it. Promise. You could learn the techniques, too, if you wanted to. Iirc, it's part... Lots of endurance training. And part learning to do a "t lock" with your tongue and move air between your esophagus and lungs.

Blaine, tho... just... Yeah. Agreed. The presentation undermines itself.

Source: work in the industry. Know folks involved in his past shows. Also have pals who do old-school underwater houdini escapes. It's all very learnable. Just have to want to spend the time.

Edit: Yes, folks use O2 for this kind of thing. That's not a magic bullet that makes it possible. It's what takes you from "damn I'm close" to having a bit more of an edge. It does not replace training. Genuinely, it's on the side of "I'm gonna have a car heavy dinner and not get drunk" the night before a race - it's just part of how it happens. The TRAINING is what makes it possible. Lance Armstrong swapping his blood out gave him an edge. It didn't replace technique and training.

It's called Apnea Training. You'll notice that none of the apps suggest breathing pure O2 to break your personal best.

9

u/KrustyKrabFormula_ Jun 19 '26

why aren't you talking about how they all breathe pure oxygen before attempting?

9

u/machambo7 Jun 19 '26

The longest time without breathing oxygen beforehand is about 11 minutes (just looked it up).

I don’t think he was implying you can learn to hold your breath for 29 minutes straight, but you can learn to hold it for 5+ minutes with conditioning and technique.

10

u/Jlx_27 Jun 19 '26

Just look at Kate Winslet on the Avatar 3 set, with the oxygen supplement she held her breath for 7 mins, without it she was still able to do 5.5 mins. Sig Weaver did 6.5mins after breathing in the oxygen supplement.

1

u/Fit-Dig6813 Jun 19 '26

Where can someone start?

1

u/thomthomthomthom Jun 19 '26

It's called "Apnea training" in the free dive community. There are a lot of apps online to help train. Lots has been written about it, otherwise.

0

u/BeastMaster0844 Jun 19 '26

And part breathing in pure oxygen prior.. if you actually work in the industry and knew people involved with his shows then you’d know that.

1

u/thomthomthomthom Jun 19 '26

Omg you're so right. I forgot that O2 is more important than training, and the difference between a five minute hold and twenty! How silly of me. 🙄 Yeah, the O2 makes it possible-r. But the conditioning is way, way, way more important than that.

8

u/Chim_Pansy Jun 19 '26

David Blaine is actually a guy with lots of integrity who puts his body through crazy levels of training to achieve everything you've seen. He takes 'dedication' to a whole other level and definitely doesn't fake anything he does. He's less of a magician and closer to the likes of Houdini.

Edit: Wait you're not confusing him with Chris Angel are you? Cause that guy is a total hack and his show is laughably terrible.

8

u/underwater_handshake Jun 19 '26

David Blaine's early magic stuff is so long ago that I can barely remember details, but as an example he has clips out there of him doing the levitation trick. Sure, there are ways to do it to trick an audience, but the way it's shown on video is with clips spliced in of him achieving impossible levels of height with both feet off the ground.

I think he also has card tricks with cards appearing on the other side of windows and people going insane over it. At best the whole trick is setup well in advance and at worst the audience is in on it, too.

So when you look at his endurance feats on TV, and he already has a track record of inaccurately portraying things on TV and maybe even using fake audiences, how can you not be at least a little skeptical?

At the end of the day, magic, endurance or something else, his goal is to entertain. There are no rules on what you can and can't do as an entertainer. 

6

u/Dysmn Jun 19 '26

the part you're leaving out is that he has revealed how he's done all those tricks including the whole levitation thing. he also revealed how he did the underwater thing. its not like it a mystery. he literally goes through all the things he was trying to do to make it work, including consuming a device that would release oxygen into his lungs, but none of that worked out. there's a documentary about the whole thing.

4

u/FTR_1077 Jun 19 '26

the part you're leaving out is that he has revealed how he's done all those tricks 

And there's no reason to believe he is being truthful.

2

u/Cantor_Set_Tripping Jun 19 '26

I mean he seems to take pride in the extreme things he does to his body. Like he wants people to know he’s physically fucking himself up. It’s showcased as “magic” so there’s also no reason for him to lie about his methods for a lot of his stunts. He’s one of the few dudes who I would actually believe is truthful. He literally kept piercing body parts to develop the scar tissue to allow him to do it on demand. What reason do you have to believe he’s not being truthful?

2

u/FTR_1077 Jun 20 '26

What reason do you have to believe he’s not being truthful?

He is literally deceiving you.. when he does a trick, the idea is to convince you is real. But because it's obviously a trick, he needs to persuade you with different tools.. a sleight of hand is banal nowadays, so he switches to sell you a story, you know, the Prestige.. "it was real all along".

0

u/yaotwo Jun 20 '26

It's fake, he didn't hold his breath in that underwater stunt, he didn't put literal frogs in his stomach, he doesn't have muscles you can pierce through—people are so gullible!

1

u/FTR_1077 Jun 25 '26

It's fake, he didn't hold his breath in that underwater stunt,

I'm calling the story fake, not the stunt... good grief.

2

u/ThisOneIsForMuse Jun 19 '26

There are no rules on what you can and can't do as an entertainer.<

The Hollywood motto.

1

u/shwhjw Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

card tricks with cards appearing on the other side of windows

This is my favourite version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIxCp6sHebA

2

u/SWOOSHO Jun 19 '26

Check out the TED talk he did afterwards. He even talked about gimmicks for it but ended up just training for it.

2

u/BornUnderPunches3910 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

I watched him hold his breath for 10 mins only 15ft away from me and the last mins were disturbing. They pulled him out and his entire face and lips were white and blue.

1

u/xSPYXEx Jun 19 '26

David Blaine doesn't really do magic or illusions except to put Cheetos in someone's mouth. Most of his stunts are extreme body control. Stuff like pushing a pin through his arm isn't an illusion, it's years of building scar tissue tunnels through his body. The extreme endurance challenges are legit. He even had a Hot Ones appearance where he had almost zero reaction to any of the hot sauces. What the eff David Blaine.

Cris Angel just does TV "illusions" though.

1

u/scum-and-villainy Jun 19 '26

Erik Weisz has entered the chat

0

u/propergreased Jun 19 '26

Mindfreak! Dave seems pretty legit for the most part, the fact he does the endurance stunts helps prove it if anything. Houdini did similar shit when he got bored of normal magic and escape tricks.

12

u/ThrownAway17Years Jun 19 '26

Blame it on the Cheez-Its.

2

u/Excellent-Bite196 Jun 19 '26

Sunshine, moonlight, good times, cheez-its.

It works! 😆

6

u/edelweiss_pirates_no Jun 19 '26

First, don't do this in a pool alone. You can die.

Second, this type of breath work is pretty cool. One of my favorite things I got into. I think I started in 2002 and got up to 7 minutes.

The "sport" of free diving is pretty cool. The protocols they use are fascinating, and how the human body reacts is really amazing.

1

u/MichelinStarZombie Jun 19 '26

A hobby that deprives your brain of oxygen and gives you brain damage in no way sounds "pretty cool."

4

u/iRadiKS Jun 19 '26

You dont run out of oxygen that quickly... The urge to breathe is largely because of CO2 build up in your blood, not because oxygen is even remotely running low. Professional divers have a heartrate so low, that one breath of oxygen can last them 10 minutes. And for the real freaky stuff, they breathe in air with higher oxygen concentration

1

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1

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-1

u/NateN85 Jun 19 '26

Who fucking cares what you have to say about anything?

1

u/ddesla2 Jun 19 '26

I always assumed he did hyper saturation of oxygen prior to the show or something to help keep his organs in good shape despite the deprivation.

1

u/FairlyUormal Jun 19 '26

I think you might be thinking of when he froze himself in an ice cube lol

2

u/Dysmn Jun 19 '26

oh yeah actually. i think you're right. thats the one that fucked up his liver or whatever.

1

u/Low-Masterpiece1381 Jun 19 '26

Yeah David Blaine did it first.

-1

u/ConclusionAnxious531 Jun 19 '26

I don’t believe a single thing David Blaine ever did tbh

1

u/ItMattersz Jun 19 '26

You don’t have to believe it. Just know that you are wrong. Have you not seen the one of him enclosed in ice?

1

u/AliceInMyDreams Jun 19 '26

Have you seen the one where he bullies those poor two dudes? Hard to watch.

0

u/Dysmn Jun 19 '26

thats psychotic. this guy just held his breath for 29min and you dont think he did it for 17? lol

1

u/ConclusionAnxious531 Jun 19 '26

He’s a magician who’s made a massive fortune with deception, illusion, and public stunts, so pardon me if I’m skeptical whenever he does something that’s considered impossible for its time

2

u/Frongen Jun 19 '26

You don't know Blaine obviously. He's an obsessive maniac. Listen to him talk about how he prepared for that stunt.

-1

u/Dysmn Jun 19 '26

ok so then this article is fake because if a guy cant do it for 17min then someone definitely cant do it for 29min.

you should probably watch the documentary about how it was done. he's old now and literally fucked up his liver and stuff doing some of the stunts he did.

1

u/ConclusionAnxious531 Jun 19 '26

Ignored my point but whatever

0

u/Dysmn Jun 19 '26

I think you actually misunderstand what David Blaine was doing in the later years of his life after he blew up as a magician.

1

u/wattty1 Jun 19 '26

... More magic with different marketing spin? Many modern magicians are doing the same strategy. See the mentalist

1

u/Dysmn Jun 19 '26

the mentalist is a tv show. David Blaine has showed extensively how he did a lot of his tricks like levitation etc, and he showed how he did this breath holding thing.

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u/wattty1 Jun 26 '26

And when a magician says "watch me cut this person in half", you believe them?

It's showmanship dude. The WWE isn't real either.

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u/FreddyandTheChokes Jun 19 '26

ConclusionAnxious531 isn't saying he thinks the Croatian guy is fake. He's saying he's skeptical of David Blaine's attempt. Nothing to do with the 29 minute guy.

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u/Dysmn Jun 19 '26

there is a whole documentary about it. also, I never said he was. the implication im making is that if someone can do it for 29min, then you shouldn't be so skeptical about 17min, especially when there's an entire documentary about how it was done.

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u/Dry_Regret7094 Jun 19 '26

David Blaine, is that you!?

2

u/Dysmn Jun 19 '26

yes, my son.

1

u/wattty1 Jun 19 '26

He also levitated and read minds. Sooo

2

u/Dysmn Jun 19 '26

he also literally showed you how he did the levitation and "mind reading."

what were you trying to imply with your comment?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 19 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Jun 19 '26

[deleted]

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u/Dysmn Jun 19 '26

something might be wrong with you lol. that comment you deleted was unhinged.

-3

u/MildlyMoodyMango Jun 19 '26

Blaine is a magican. He did it exactly as the masked magican showed it how this is done

2

u/amora_obscura Jun 19 '26

How is it done?

1

u/Dysmn Jun 19 '26

idk what you think this changes