Erik von Markovik aka Mystery 

The World’s Greatest Pick Up Artist

His tips, tactics, techniques and biography….

Erik von Markovik (aka Mystery) first came to prominence as a PUA in the seduction community in September 1998 when he began posting on fastseduction.com and lived in Toronto. He then launched his career as a pick up teacher in 2001 when he became the first PUA to offer in-field instruction picking up women. 

Among his first students was Style (aka Neil Strauss). Mystery appeared in two seasons of the VH1 reality TV show, “The Pick Up Artist” as well as being the main character in Neil Strauss’ “The Game”. Before this he was a successful magician, illusionist and mentalist.

Mystery is known for having instructed almost every major guru and PUA, from Neil Strauss(aka Style) to Sinn to Tyler Durden. While some former students turned gurus are quick to criticize von Markovik, few can deny his genius in helping them progress their game.

Erik von Markovik originally created the guise of Mystery for a mentalist show before entering into the seduction community.

Mystery changed his name from Eric James Horvat-Markovic to Erik Markovik.

Erik von Markovik has appeared as Mystery in 2 seasons of “The Pick Up Artist” on VH1

Von Markovik also wrote his own book about picking up girls, The Mystery Method:How to get Beautiful Women into Bed.

Innovations from Mystery (aka Erik von Markovik) in the PUA community

Negging

The ‘neg’ or ‘neg hit’ which is a commonly misused technique in the PUA community. While many believe that the purpose of the neg is to give a backhanded compliment or even insult a woman, the real purpose of the ‘neg’ is to disqualify yourself from being a considered a suitor to your target while simultaneously increasing your value in order to attract the her.

Peacocking

Von Markovik got the idea of peacocking from suprise, suprise……the peacock. The idea is to wear at least one interesting item of clothing so that a woman has something to comment on if she wants to start a conversation with you.

This can be taken to an extreme, dressing totally outlandishly. The idea is that you are a larger than life character who is unaffected by what other people think. The main drawback is simple. If this is not who you really are, then you will not be congruent with the image you are portraying. It may also be difficult for girls to picture you fitting into their lives if you are dressed totally outlandish.

It works for von Markovik as he portrays himself as the ‘superstar daredevil illusionist’ Mystery not plain old Eric von Markovik.

The Mystery Method: M3 model

The M3 model is Mystery’s system for attracting, seducing and sleeping with girls. The system has given it’s students a lot of success

It’s overall structure is: Attract—>Comfort—>Seduction

That is to first attract the girl, then once she is attracted to you, build up a comfortable rapport with her before finally seducing and sleeping with her.

While the system works fantastically in certain situations, there are some major drawbacks.

1. It assumes you have lower social value relative to the girl. Not always true

2. Erik von Markovik presents the Mystery Method as a linear system (ie many students misunderstand how to properly use it. They believe that when you have attracted the girl, you can then stop all attraction generating material and move in to the next phase. This is incorrect) When picking up a girl, you will find yourself getting better results by using this method as a guide, but not as absolute, rigid law as from time to time you’ll need to change between the different phases of the method in order to keep her attracted and invested in the interaction/you.

3. It is geared towards clubs and approaching indirectly, as this is where von Markovik developed the Mystery Method. But imagine walking down a street and seeing a girl you want to talk to walking the other way. You stop her to ask her opinion,

“Who lies more? Men or women?”

Does that seem like a normal thing to do?

HELL NO. It’s not normal

If what you are doing/saying is not relevant to the situation, then it most likely will not work.

There are some drawbacks to the M3 model, but it is still a very good(if not a little complicated) system for pick up girls and many people credit von Markovik and the Mystery Method for their success as PUAs.

A pick up artist more respected than Mystery has now emerged, he is almost universally ranked #1 by all other pick up artists. Check out his site for more information by clicking here