The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss

The book is narrated by protagonist Neil Strauss with emphasis on the personal transformation he undergoes to become an "influential member of the seduction community". The dominant theme throughout the book is the doctrine of "the Venusian Arts" as taught to Neil by the Community. Although several wide-ranging beliefs and ideals for the perfect seducer are presented, Strauss takes after Mystery and his Mystery Method, providing what could be considered a literary endorsement for him.


Strauss meets the Community

By chance Strauss is asked to write a news article on a popular online document called the Layguide. Immediately after reading the book, Neil is stunned and searches eagerly for more information on the study of male-to-female seduction. Spending months absorbing the lingo and literature online, he discovers a course offered in Los Angeles by instructor 'Mystery'.

Mystery, a tall charismatic magician, is the most respected in the Community for his tried techniques (termed the Mystery Method), which he posts online. Through popular demand on the Internet, he begins travelling workshops to personally coach men who struggle to attract women. At his first class, he teaches Neil and two other students an entirely new approach to women; they adopt canned lines, ways to dress, and develop more confident, sociable personalities. Strauss adopts the nickname Style.

Strauss learns, in his interaction with Mystery, to actively show disinterest in a female while revealing her attraction. Postponing male-to-female interest, he learns, allows the pickup artist to reverse normally-accepted gender roles in social interaction.

The christening of "Style"

Neil quickly becomes a good friend of Mystery's and accompanies him during workshops. Under Mystery's advice, Neil renames himself Style, a pseudonym symbolic of his induction as a pick-up artist; in addition, he received orders to shave his hair and have corrective eye surgery. Style complies, but formulates a less than wholesome view of Mystery.

As they pursue Slavic women in the Balkans, Mystery becomes irritable. A lack of attention made him frustrated, causing a fit in the car. Sobbing hysterically, Mystery reveals that his father was both verbally and physically abusive. This, teamed with emotional distance from his mother, he claims, left him love-starved and unfulfilled as a child.

Style abhors Mystery's cries for attention and takes time to investigate the plethora of techniques and methods available from other gurus. He meets with David DeAngelo, Ross Jeffries, and many notables throughout the book, incorporating their ideas selectively into what he does.

Project Hollywood

Style joins the Community as a full-fledged member, working with Mystery's company, the Mystery Method. He teaches workshops and becomes a proficient pickup practitioner. He feels enlightened and content as a pickup artist. At the same time, Mystery has a depressive episode and requires hospitalization.

As the new leader, Style watches the Community expand rapidly from the Internet and word-of-mouth at college campuses. He is inspired by an interview with Tom Cruise, convinced that the Mystery Method, like Scientology, could become a Hollywood hit. Style launches Project Hollywood, a cult-like subculture in Hollywood, California. With the rehabilitated Mystery, he and the group rent a mansion there and gain fame dating the hottest celebrities in the city.

The Mystery Method: How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed by Mystery, Lovedrop, and Neil Strauss

Mystery asks us to suspend disbelief in these pages and we are wise to do so. He analyzes the irrational process of seduction and attraction in the most logical way possible. These chapters are full of symbols and lingo which (yes, can be trying) but ultimately describe the privileged sex in a manner far superior to anything you will find in the self-help section of the local bookstore.

I have studied women to a great extent, and believe that what Mystery reveals here informs us more of their group behaviors than the majority of psychology textbooks. As I read this work I looked back on some of my own romantic successes and failures--particularly those with unexpected outcomes. I came away with the realization my most fantastic memories were a result of my own--generally unintentional--practice of negging and demonstrations of value; while my memories of disaster sprung from a diminishment of personal value and a refusal to build comfort. All of us can learn from this man and we must always remember that in this game, as in so many others, fortune always favors the bold.

Jayne Ann Krentz - Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance

Another great book that David DeAngelo recommends:

"Readable, fascinating looks into the fiction read by real women in the real world."—Augusta Wynde, Whole Earth Review

In Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women, Jayne Ann Krentz and the contributors to this volume—all best-selling romance writers—explode myths and biases that haunt both the writers and readers of romances.

In this seamless, ultimately fascinating, and controversial book, the authors dispute some of the notions that plague their profession, including the time-worn theory that the romance genre contains only one single, monolithic story, which is cranked out over and over again. The authors discuss positive life-affirming values inherent in all romances: the celebration of female power, courage, intelligence, and gentleness; the inversion of the power structure of a patriarchal society; and the integration of male and female. Several of the essays also discuss the issue of reader identification with the characters, a relationship that is far more complex than most critics realize.

"This book will interest feminist literary and media critics as primary source material for their efforts to understand the impact of the romance genre. . . . It demonstrates eloquently that thinking about the contemporary state of culture goes on beyond the ivory tower and that it is cohesive and compelling."—Janice Radway

"Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women has attracted unprecedented attention. . . . The book will be found useful by feminist and media critics. It will certainly change their perception of the genre as well."—San Francisco Review of Books

"The romance writers in Krentz's book are themselves a cross-section of educated women—geologists, lawyers, historians, librarians—who are now among the few hundred people in the United States who make a living writing books. They also battle for women's voices and values."—Women's Review of Books

"Krentz and her 18 collaborators, all best-selling romance writers, unleash a veritable arsenal of pro-romance arguments: that romances are a subversive feminist art form. That romances, far from degrading women, actually celebrate and empower women, since they always emerge triumphant over men in the requisite happy ending. That romances are the modern-day inheritor of the heroic tradition in storytelling."—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Jayne Ann Krentz (Amanda Quick, Jayne Castle, Stephanie James) has written and published more than fifty series romances for several publishers including Harlequin, Silhouette, and Dell. Currently she writes contemporary romances for Pocket Books under her own name and historical romances for Bantam under the pen name Amanda Quick. Several of her contemporary and historical titles, including Scandal, Rendezvous, Sweet Fortune, and Perfect Partners, appeared on the New York Times bestseller list.

Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene

Books that David DeAngelo recommends and that I read and reviewed for you:




The Selfish Gene is a book on evolution by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976. It builds upon the principal theory of George C. Williams's first book Adaptation and Natural Selection.

Dawkins coined the term selfish gene as a way of expressing the gene-centred view of evolution, which holds that evolution is best viewed as acting on genes and that selection at the level of organisms or populations almost never overrides selection based on genes.



An organism is expected to evolve to maximize its inclusive fitness—the number of copies of its genes passed on globally (rather than by a particular individual). As a result, populations will tend towards an evolutionarily stable strategy.

The book also coins the term meme for a unit of human cultural evolution analogous to the gene, suggesting that such "selfish" replication may also model human culture, in a different sense. Memetics has become the subject of many studies since the publication of the book.

A crude analogy can be found in the old saying about a chicken being just an egg's way of making more eggs. In a similar inversion, Dawkins describes biological organisms as "vehicles" or survival machines, with genes as the "replicators" that create these organisms as a means of acquiring resources and copying themselves. From an organism-centric perspective, genes can be thought of as a blueprint for some feature that might benefit the organism; but from a gene-centric perspective, the sole implicit purpose is to benefit themselves. A related concept here is outlined in Dawkins' later work, The Extended Phenotype, in which the consequences of the genes to the environment outside the organism are considered.


Who is David D?


Eben W. Pagan, better known by his stage name David DeAngelo, is an American entrepreneur, author and dating consultant.

He is a member of the American Seduction community and founder of "Double Your Dating", a company providing dating advice to men and marketed primarily over the Internet that made books like "Attraction is not a Choice".

DeAngelo argues that much human social behavior is related in some way to sexual reproduction, and that human mating habits do not differ significantly from other species.

He suggests that societal conditioning has programmed many modern men to develop involuntary habits that increase the failure rate of consistently attracting women or negate the attractive qualities that were designed to make women want them.

DeAngelo set out to build his skills at meeting women through a number of avenues, including seeking the counsel of "naturals" (men who are naturally good with women) and students of women such as Hypnotica (Eric Von Sydow) Steve Piccus (Steve P), Dave Riker, Rick H, and as a protégé of Ross Jeffries.

He's featured on the book "The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists", by Neil Strauss that also features Mystery, the greatest PUA (Pick-Up Artist) of the world that has a reality show on VH1.