5 Key Takeaways From The New David Blaine 'Electrified' Doc

Known for freezing, burying, and drowning himself, illusionist David Blaine added electrocution to his long list of endurance feats almost exactly one year ago today with the 72-hour spectacle "Electrified."  The new documentary above offers an in-depth and intimate look at the death-defying performance that placed Blaine at the mercy of seven Tesla coils and 1,000,000 volts of electricity, transforming him into a virtual lightning rod for three harrowing days.

"You have to be super human to do this," says Marina Abramovic, the woman who once sat in a chair at the MoMA for 700 hours.

Blaine's feats have been widely captured over the past decade (his latest special David Blaine: Real or Magic, premieres Nov. 19 on ABC), but that doesn't mean we didn't learn a few things from the video above.  And thus, compiled below are our five key takeways from ELECTRIFIED | A Performance by David Blaine:

1) All magicians are the best kind of phonies:

'It's like Robert-Houdin said: 'A magician is just an actor playing the part of a magician'. All the really good magicians I think historically are the ones that actually believe what they’re doing is real. Once you get to that place, you really want to do things that are real." 

2) David Blaine is hardcore. Like, really hardcore:

“It’s not too bad, I’m just worried about hour 30 when I start to hallucinate a little bit?” Blaine responds when asked how he's able to survive on days without food, sleep, or sometimes even full use of his arms and legs. “Now when the brain goes, there’s nothing equal to it. Mental torture is the craziest thing. I did 44 days on just water and went into liver failure, kidney failure, and was probably a couple of days away from dying. And that was never scary. But when your brain goes and these nightmares start?..You don’t ever think it’s going to go away."

3) David Blaine doesn’t care about the haters:

"There’s always those people that come look at these things that I do and say ‘oh, it’s all fake..it’s not real.' The ones who say it’s all fake are gonna pick apart anything. I don’t think you can pay much attention, you just do it."

4) Harmony Korine and David Blaine could make a buddy sitcom:

Watch Korine motivate Blaine through a "tazer to the guts," and let it warm your heart.

5) Even David Blaine's emails are magic:

How does he get it to go upside-down??

Learn about all the above, plus get a glimpse of Blaine's insanely delightful, delirium-induced dance moves, as set to the psychedelic beat-boxing of comedian Reggie Watts.

You can keep track of David Blaine's next moves here, and be sure to tune in to his 90-minute special David Blaine: Real or Magic, premiering Tuesday, Nov. 19 at 9:30 p.m. on ABC.