Sinn vs. Mehow?

Okay, I knew my Top 10 List would cause some controversy (hell, it does every year!), especially with the inclusion of controvercial community figure Mehow on the list.

But now it seems that Mehow is taking some flack for “stealing” Mystery Method techniques and passing them off as his own (a phenomenon that has been going on since Mystery started teaching workshops!).

TOp MM instructor Sinn has fired the first salvo in the attack against Mehow.  I’ll be interested to see how Mehow responds.

Here’s what happened…
First, Mehow posts a response to my Top 10 list:

Mehow writes:
Happy New Year Everybody!

I appreciate the mention on the list.

Couple of comments — the reason everybody thinks I just do MM is that on a lot of my videos I’m doing a MM based attraction and comfort structure. I actually teach a radically different attraction system but I don’t post that publicly. On my videos I do my version of what is essentially ‘community game’ — e.g. Mystery’s stuff — but I do it with pretty much entirely original content. I do that so me and my students gain the benefit of my game staying secret.

Props to Mystery for getting me started — also I learned a ton from the other guys on this list – Swingcat, Hypnotica, Steve P, Style, David D, Juggler, and Badboy. I have learned a ton from each of you. You guys all rock. Pretty much the community changed my life and I’m deeply indebted to all the guys out there that I learned from in person or via their material.

If you are legitimate community press we welcome you to come hang out with us anytime at a bootcamp and I can show you what we are about. Ping certainty@mehow.tv for info on community press comps to our bootcamps.

Again Happy New Year!

-m

Okay, so we had a very Tyler Durden-esque response here, along with the claim that Mehow has a secret  attraction system he hasn’t shared publically yet.

That did not seem to fly with Sinn.

Sinn writes:
Please verify my address on this post so you guys know this is the real Sinn.

Now onto Mehow. How exactly does using an attraction-comfort-seduction model differ from The Mystery Method? I haven’t taught a boot camp in a week and a half, but that sequence sounds strikingly similar to what you and I were both taught quite a while ago, Mehow… in a Mystery Method boot camp.

I think that you may have confused the underlying structure of a courtship for routines that have been passed around the community. I don’t mean to phrase this as an attack, but that’s a mistake I hear from students who take a 1-on-1 or a phone consultation from us.

It’s not the routines and lines that saw The Mystery Method written up in Elle, the New York Times, Marie Claire, and the LA Times. The routines are training wheels. What any successful Mystery Method student understands– and I would think as a self-professed guru you would understand this– is that one of the most powerful lessons men can learn from The Mystery Method is, in fact, the structure and the impetus to forge an attractive identity.

Also why do you post videos of you demonstrating game that is not what your potential students will be learning? I suspect that disparity would lead to confusion on the part of students in the best case scenario, and indignation in the worst.

If your structure varies so much from The Mystery Method structure, why not show off your new structure? I mean, as it stands, you’re just taking up a weird defensive posture that asks a very obvious question with what seems a shifty answer.

Look at it this way: we reveal The Mystery Method structure on our website openly. It’s been around for years and years. And we are currently the leading commercial pick-up company. As an elder company to a younger one, trust those who have walked the road before you: revealing that structure can only help you, not hurt.

Even the subtleties I sometimes debate with more inner-game focused commercial PUA companies are not present. You are still running attraction routines, rather than assuming attraction. You disqualify, then qualify. I apologize if I’m being obtuse, Mehow. Again, unveiling a more nuanced look at your structure would be far more illuminating. As it is, I can’t help but feel the only differences between your product and The Mystery Method are in the routines (i.e. training wheels) our respective companies teach.

Instead of making sweeping claims and hiding under a cloak of corporate secrecy, help me… actually never mind me, help your potential customers understand the difference between your product and The Mystery Method, so they can take the Pepsi Challenge on their own terms.

Also why the term “community press corps”? I dislike maintaining the barrier between “the community” and everyone else. I don’t even know what the community press is, to be honest. If some guy wants to see what we’re made of, and he can’t make it to one of my boot camps, then grab a beer with him and show him I’m not a charlatan. It seems disingenuous to insinuate you are having actual press relations when the only reason you have been approached by media besides Current TV* is because you pay a PR firm. (For those who don’t know, this is who you are referred to in the link on Mehow’s site regarding “media relations.”) It’s not that I have a problem with using a PR firm. I think it’s a great idea. It’s just that waving your arms frantically and screaming on the ground doesn’t mean you’re flying.

You pay people to talk to you and say nice things later; that’s hardly a crime, but it’s also not a good pretext to what is finally a rather personal and emotionally sensitive teaching process.  You even mention interweaving grounding routines on your website, when it was on this very site that Mystery first wrote up his piece on grounding routines. I couldn’t find it on Thundercat’s site, but we included it in the VAH.

Regrettably, I’m in Las Vegas with Future, Tenmagnet, and Neo, so I don’t have access to my home computer. When I get home, I’ll post a screenshot taken in the fall of 2006 where Mehow himself admits on fastseduction.com that he was able to seal the deal only once after his boot camp. While one’s first lay with The Mystery Method is always exhilarating, I think it’s presumption to start a seduction company after one woman shared her body with you.

Sadly, it has to be a screenshot since Mehow changed his year-in-review early last year, both on fastseduction.com and Mystery’s Lounge… shortly before he went commercial. Our moderators can easily produce proof of when he edited the post; it was shortly before mehow.tv went online. I don’t know how extensive Formhandle’s logs and archives are, so I won’t speak for his ability to do the same.

If you want to steal our system, Mehow, that’s fine. Your success is our success. It would be stupid for me to criticize your flash game. (Although I suspect Future could teach you a thing or fifty about comfort) But it’s a chickenshit move to become an excellent student, then a Mystery Method instructor, then run off claiming you’ve discovered some new mastery theory of pick-up.

All this community has is ideas. We can’t truly patent any of them. But the ideas you ripped off were Mystery Method ideas, and all you’ve done is rebranded them and sold them under a counterfeit brand. Very fucking manly.

* – I think it’s a mistake to count the Current TV piece as yours since they were interviewing you as an instructor with The Mystery Method, not as a solo act or a separate brand.)

OWCH!

Sinn really laid into Mehow there.  It’s almost funny, since the same argument was made against RSD when they first started.  History truly does repeat itself, I guess.

But I’m willing to give Mehow the benefit of the doubt.  It’s not uncommon for pick up artists to go off with what they’ve learned and develop something new.  After all, that’s what artists who paint with brushes do too.  They study the greats, and come up with a new style.

The only problem is, we really haven’t seen anything OTHER than Mystery Method from Mehow just yet.  So other than being a qualified MM instructor, what does he have to offer that you couldn’t get from someone like Sinn – who is an EXCELLENT pick up artist and teaches true MM with no appologies?

In a way, I’m almost tempted to name this conflict the “Mystery Method Civil War,” since it seems that you have two different camps, teaching the same things, feuding with each other.

Will Mehow eventually morph into another RSD?  Or will he prove everyone wrong and actually bring something new to the table?

I don’t know about you, but I’m interested to find out!