There used to be a magician at Knott's Berry Farm that demonstrated this trick pretty close to the audience and then explained that he had trained for years to create the pathway through his body for the sword to pass through.

The arm is particularly easy because of how the muscles are arranged around the bone. It passes right below the biceps. Not much going on in this particular, dare I say "easy" to pull off location of bloodless stabbiness.
I don't know if the Knott's magician is still there or not, but it was a "magic" show that explained the science behind older, more simplistic tricks like this.

Also included were lots of different types of electricity stunts (static electricity, powering light bulbs through people, etc.), which have fallen to the wayside with magicians because most people nowadays understand electricity and it's not as gut wrenching as this scar tissue build up dealio.

I upvoted for Ricky's reactions and David'd ridiculous goading, but the trick itself is le sigh.

The magician at Knott's had a fairly visible scar on both sides of his arm, as he likely performed the trick A LOT. Serious needle mark action. lol. Blaine probably rarely performs this trick and perhaps used other material, like make up, latex or some such material, glue, creams, etc.

Ricky Gervais is to Karl Pilkington as David Blaine is to Ricky Gervais.

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But seriously, he's not kidding. Neither him, Ricky Gervais or Jonah Hill are as funny as they used to be.

I actually like that host a lot more. He just loves being shit on, he thinks it's hilarious. It's like Ricky Gervais meeting one of his idols.

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Like others have pointed out, I don't see this actually working, its an idea with no feasible working theory behind it. Reminds me of Karl Pilkingtons idea of a watch that counts down to your time of death, and Ricky Gervais asked him how it could work, he said "You just pop it on your wrist."

You're not one of them Ricky

There is only one way to laugh, the Ricky Gervais laugh. If everyone laughed like him the world would be a better place.

Ricky is dead.

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Yeah, Ricky, it does suck when silly people tweet you poorly thought out complaints about your jokes.

Meanwhile, after Lindy West debated Jim Norton on rape jokes, she was the target of literally hundreds of tweets and comments saying she should be raped (or that she wishes she was raped but unfortunately she's too ugly).

http://jezebel.com/if-comedy-has-no-lady-problem-why-am-i-getting-so-many-511214385

So excuse me if I don't have much sympathy to spare for the poor oppressed comedian complaining about how people are trying to take away his FREEZE PEACH by criticizing his choice of material.

Let me quote from Lindy's post:

"I don't believe that previously non-raping audience members are going to take to the streets in a rape mob after hearing one rape joke. That's an absurd and insulting mischaracterization. But I do believe that comedy's current permissiveness around cavalier, cruel, victim-targeting rape jokes contributes to (that's contributes—not causes) a culture of young men who don't understand what it means to take this stuff seriously.

And how did they try and prove me wrong? How did they try to demonstrate that comedy, in general, doesn't have issues with women? By threatening to rape and kill me, telling me I'm just bitter because I'm too fat to get raped, and suggesting that the debate would have been better if it had just been Jim raping me."