Last week, I saw a TV special on magician David Blaine, who - as we can all recall - has been getting lots of press lately with his week-long water bubble stunt in New York.



The program was a new version of his popular "Street Magic" show - this one in which he travelled to various ends of the Earth, performing magic tricks again for people who were just walking along on a fine day, minding their own business. Slow-moeing the show in Tivo revealed some real slick slight of hand on David's part (for example, the headless chicken trick was pretty damn obvious), but there was some stuff in there that truly blew me away.

I think my favorite was the one where he cowers in front of an old homeless man, takes his papercup of coffee into both hands, holds onto it real tight - until all of a sudden, the coffee turns into coins - to the delight of the homeless guy and to the shock of the viewer. The camera never left the cup, and Tivo didn't provide any clues, so despite much pondering on that trick since, I'm still pretty damn baffled.
(This site however has some insider/spoiler info on some of David's tricks.)

As I watched people freak out, stand there in quiet astonishment, or start to cry hysterically after one of his tricks, it occured to me that Blaine - had he been born, say, 2000 years ago - might have elicited similar kinds of responses. But with a totally different historical outcome.

Religious zealots (welcome to my site, valued Opus Dei readers!) will condemn me to hell for this (hey, I'm going already anyway ...), but here's my theory nonetheless: what if Jesus was simply a glorified David Blaine? Maybe with a bit more purpose and spirituality - but what if his "miracles" were simply tricks? What if this handsome, charming and no doubt charismatic man, who travelled the lands and picked up followers like modern-day groupies, performed his miracles to merely amuse, astound, and earn himself a living (was he maybe tired of carpentry? It's possible!)? And what if the resurrection was his ultimate trick?

This of course ties in neatly with the whole Da Vinci Code theory (movie yesterday was so-so, book was better) that Jesus was a mortal man, married to Marie Magdalene, and the father of a daughter - and not a pure, divine being like the catholic church wants to make you believe.

Honestly. I think even regular church-goers and believers can see the logic in this possibility, no? Why else would the Vatican be freaked out like that? [Interestingly, they didn't condemn the similarly-themed movie Stigmata with the same fervor - probably because its profile was a lot lower than The Da Vinci Code, and it was passed off as a horror movie (which it wasn't).]

All in all, it's a fascinating topic and one the world should have put up for discussion long ago - care to comment, dear readers?