Erik von Markovik

Erik von Markovik (born September 24, 1971), more popularly known by his stage name, Mystery, is a Canadian pickup artist who developed a system of attracting women called The Mystery Method which gained him attention in the PUA community. This in turn led to him getting a VH1 show called The Pickup Artist.

The character Mystery was created by Erik von Markovic in the late 1990s for his performances as a mentalist, titled Natural Magic. He has done magic performances in many places, including Toronto, Las Vegas and Hollywood. The name Mystery was also used by von Markovik as an internet username. He is the author of The Mystery Method: How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed.

Mystery describes himself as a "late bloomer" and acknowledges that he spent his early life playing Dungeons & Dragons and he had little or no success with women. However, his desire to love and be loved by women prompted him to go clubbing every night, practicing and testing various ways to implement social interactions with people. Over a period of trial and error of more than ten years, "and many, many mistakes," Mystery created what is now known as the 'Mystery Method' or the 'Venusian Arts'.

He closely observed how people act with each other during the "courtship" of a relationship, and combining these observations with various theories of evolutionary psychology, he created a system of techniques and strategies designed to help men succeed with women in different social situations such as bars, clubs, cafes and similar places. He shared his theories in a discussion group on Usenet, alt.seduction.fast, and became famous for his analytical approach in the field of seduction and the "reports" he detailed.

Mystery taught and then befriended the writer Neil Strauss, who became Mystery's wingman and eventually a mentor in the seduction community. Along with a group of other former students, Mystery and Strauss shared a mansion in Hollywood ("Project Hollywood"), which soon became a focal point for potential students. Their friendship is told in the book of Strauss's method, The Game.

In 2004, Mystery formed the Mystery Method Corporation, and at the end of 2006, Mystery left to found a new company, called Venusian Arts. (The Mystery Method Corporation continued without him, and has since changed its name to Love Systems). Mystery's current venture is a company called "3 Second Rule", named after a Mystery Method rule whereby the student pickup artist must approach a set of people within 3 seconds of first noticing them.

The New York Times published Strauss's early writings on the PUA culture and in 2007 sent one of its reporters to a club with a pickup student. According to Sady Doyle in Medium, the PUA lifestyle "had been normalized, seen not as anti-feminist extremism, but as a slightly more baroque version of standard frat-boy obnoxiousness."