Pickup artistry is a religion.
I know, I know, I call everything a religion. But when I say this word, religion, I mean there are certain affordances in the human psyche, and they are filled by memetic egregores, and when they are empty, they long to be filled

Pickup artistry (hereafter, PUA) is a religion, and in spite of its relative youth, it is quite a sophisticated one. I mean no offense to men who subscribe to these views when I analyze them. There are people who think “X is a religion” is a criticism. Wrong
I have identified six major components of religious memeplexes. There are other, lesser components. To review, they are: eschatology, false consciousness, religious ecstasy, dietary taboo, a nemesis, and evangelism. PUA has all of these component
https://t.co/oaPKgPAYeD
False consciousness: before you learned of the Venusian arts, you were an average frustrated chump. Now, using my FIELD TESTED system and techniques, you can become ALPHA and will be able to get as many beautiful women as you want
https://t.co/TxHz70czV2
Eschatology: the West is in decline, have you heard of Spengler? Don’t waste your time trying to fix it. I’ll be poolside, enjoying the decline by using game to get as many flags as possible
https://t.co/5OW3OXj197
Nemesis: feminism, also women, also the feminine imperative, In many ways this is a mirror of feminist ideas that all men oppress all women by nature of their existence, though with one critical distinction: the full power of the law is on women’s side
https://t.co/34TZFu9ggi
Religious ecstasy: the ecstasy of the flesh is the only ecstasy that PUA needs, but it actually promises an even higher form of enlightenment, a state of “abundance” in which a man is finally free of his psychological dependency on the comforts of women
https://t.co/YFGQMZSgBD
Dietary taboos: don’t eat carbs, they make you fat. No sugar! Get strong and lean and above all buy all these supplements I am selling. (Note: low carb/high protein diets are good. That an is sacralized is orthogonal to its value)
https://t.co/jXxM2sGdpv
Evangelism: most PUA evangelism happens over the internet through blogs, tweets, books, and forums. By formulating teachings in a way that are unacceptable to police society, they make themselves appealing to the alienated
https://t.co/VHVkqDhsg6
Some of my language above is a bit dated. I am aware that the various sects of PUA, such as MGTOW and The Red Pill (broadly: the manosphere) have developed their own language and framing of these ideas, in part to escape the stigma and persecution around these beliefs
It’s fascinating to see religious practices spring up out of the void, to fill the void left by the collapse of Christianity. I think that feminism, which was in many ways an ideology built around the desire to destroy Christianity, also created the conditions that created PUA
There is a certain madness one feels, also, when he walks through a big city, the sheer volume of beautiful young women surrounding him. The desire to possess all of them, every single one, to drown in a sea of nubility; the waves and storms weather the mind
PUA is a masculine religion, only masculine, it can accept no female converts, because its impetus is man’s cosmic loneliness, which many men, especially young men, think they can cure with a woman
There is something of Buddhism in PUA, because although it promises women, it teaches independence from women, or more specifically, transcendence of desire. Your problem, it says, is that you have idolized women, but through mastery you will be free of the pain of desire
PUA has ritualized forms of practice. Cold approaches and “day game” can be very structured, having scripts and even specific words that are taught to the initiate. Like a mantra, like a prayer, the PUA prays to his god by reciting a pickup line
A young woman is an avatar of god (Woman), and by learning to speak his prayers in the appropriate way, god may grant the PUA his desire for ecstasy
Almost by definition, a pickup artist is a man who struggles with women, who is bad at talking to women and relating to them sexually. They acknowledge this, and mythologize the rare man who was born without these troubles. He is called a “natural”
The approach is traumatic for the practitioner, especially at first. The lore of the approach, the fear, and the confrontation with with fear, stimulate spiritual growth
If you are critical of pickup artistry, you will find that men who follow it can become very upset or defensive. This is because you have attacked something sacred to them, which is not a promiscuous lifestyle, but rather, their hope for salvation
In fact I suspect many of the men who follow these beliefs are relatively celibate, and they consume the literature and the spectacle of pickup artistry as one would consume any devotional: passively, and to nourish the spirit. But most would begrudge them that
In the evolution of the manospherian faith, the emphasis has changed from routines and magic spells to weightlifting and financial success. This is natural, and good, but still we find vestiges of the older forms
If I may draw a parallel,
1st wave masculism: mystery, roosh, roissy
2nd wave: the red pill, F. Roger Devlin, BAP
3rd wave: ??
I am hardly the first to observe that there is a certain natural gradient from masculism as anti-feminism to masculism as reactionary consciousness.
I have heard many on the right express a need for a new religion, but it will be nearly impossible to fashion one from whole cloth. We must use the building blocks that we have around us.
We must pull from an already living, evolving memeplex, and shape it the way that any priest shapes the scriptures. The goal of any incipient religion is to be the next Tlön
https://t.co/7x8cG3bLFV

More from Zer̵ō̵ ̶͇̀Ĥ̴̲P̵͔̚ Lovecraft 🛡

Baudrillard perfectly captured the feeling of modernity when he referred to our state of affairs as “after the orgy” we have seen liberation in every sphere: political, sexual, and social. Women, Art, unconscious drives—all are free! Baudrillard’s question is: what now?

Baudrillard noticed, before any reactionary blogger uttered such a critique, that we are now caught in a perpetual simulation and re-enactment of the revolutionary liberation that has long passed


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Since the dawn of agriculture at least—female historians of both sexes tell us—we have been living in Men’s world, where women were brutally subjugated by men. Women’s liberation is the total reversal of this, a vengeful subjugation of men. This is dubious but let’s lean into it

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