---
title: Episode 127 Cult Of Personality
episode_number: 127
era: mid
source_file: Episode 127 Cult Of Personality.mp3
audio_size_mb: 57.2
duration_sec: 1874.2
duration_min: 31.2
language: en
provider: deepgram
model: nova-3
diarized: true
confidence: 0.994
transcribed_at: 2026-05-27T16:57:46Z---

# Episode 127 Cult Of Personality

**Speaker 0:** Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. This is Thomas Torero with the Internet's most regular pickup podcast coming at you weekly. It a rate, it a review on iTunes or perhaps you're watching it, you're watching a blank slide for thirty minutes on YouTube. Cheers for the follow, cheers for the download. Let us dive into today's pickup topic which is on the cult of personality. Not just fame, but real magnetism, real charisma, real control that women worship these men but also men worship these leaders. Why? How? That's what we shall talk about today. First of all, some housekeeping. I shall be in Paris this week, this Thursday, October 26 doing a meet and greet, a book signing, have a beer with me, come and say hello. I've done daygame before many times in Paris, but it was quite a while ago. So it'll be nice to be back. It will be nice to see guys that perhaps I've coached, to meet new guys just to have a bit of a chat. So that is this Thursday as I said, 08:30PM until 10PM spread the word. We're having a beer in Belushi's bar Gardiner. So just Google Belushi's, b e l u s h I apostrophe s Gardiner next to the train station, just opposite the main entrance. That is this week. I've been very active on my website, on the blog there, www.tomterrero.com. I don't know why. Maybe it's the cold. Maybe it's because I'm trying to delay editing this bloody documentary. But anyway, every day as I've been eating in a cafe, I've been putting up posts. There's one on alphas, there's one on beaters and neediness, there is a lay report from this trip to Russia, my favorite one, like a game of chess. There's one on micro calibration which links to the YouTube video. That's something advanced that you asked for. There's an interview with me done by a Japanese pickup website. There's a little mini article on a coffee bridge date idea and there's a comment article on playing fair. Is life fair? Is evolution fair? Is the dating, mating, dance fair? So that's all on the blog. Feel free to read. In about forty five minutes, I'm going to the airport flying from Russia to London, then I'm getting the train from London to Wales, time with the family, that little side trip to Paris, back to The UK and then I'm very excited to be going to Japan. So it's quite a hectic schedule. Oh, last announcement. As I'm recording this podcast, I'm waiting for a notification from Amazon because I've I uploaded my kindle version of cold calling finally how to meet and pick up and seduce girls in the former Soviet Union here in Russia. So as soon as that happens it will be live. It will be available to read on your kindle. So there's the paperback version on Lulu but then there'll be this worldwide for sale immediately kindled version. There we go. Okay. Cult of personality, not just fame as I said, not just Justin Bieber but really powerful men that exert great influence. The quote, the definition for cult personality being, when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, which you could argue all media is, or other methods to create an idealized heroic and at times worshipful image. So it doesn't really matter about your politics, this is not about partisan politics. Try and look at the common themes. What do these men have? What do their behaviors have that are common? What can we learn from them? The dark arts are involved of dark triad traits. Why do women find them so attractive and and why are men so persuaded by such characters? Think of Pablo Escobar, think of Vladimir Putin, think of OJ Simpson, obviously think of Trump, think of Arnold Schwarz enegger, remember Pumping Iron, think of Stalin. We shall come on to the whys and the hows in this podcast. And this, the germ for this podcast started when I was told by another pickup guy to watch the documentary called I am not your guru. Behind the scenes of Tony Robbins and his mass emotional events that he puts on and the guy was basically saying, you know, is Tony Robbins the real deal Tom or do you think this is manipulation? But it's a documentary, basically a promo video for Tony Robbins. I watched it and ironically the the film is called I am not your guru but really it's it's about the about the brand of Robbins and it inflates his guru status. The answer to whether I think the Tony Robbins life coaching thing from him is manipulative, I would say well, if you watch that documentary it's clear he has a big heart, he has a big soul, he's very human, he certainly tries to help people but, there's no doubt that there's elements of a cult set up to it. I'm not saying it is a cult like a pickup company isn't a cult but it has pickup elements to it like a political party. Sorry, it has a cultish element to it just like we shall talk about with political parties and I've and I'm aware that Tony Robbins touches on these dark triad traits. So whether he gets the play within the play, the irony within the irony, I don't know. But you could start off by watching that I am not your guru all about Tony Robbins. And yeah, I've already mentioned it. You might suddenly immediately when you see this podcast say, well hang on, isn't pickup a cult, isn't some guys say, well isn't a massive company like Real Social Dynamics, RSD in America, isn't that a cult because it has a cult like structure and leaders and followers and rules and blah blah blah. We shall define cult towards the end of the podcast but but I I get it. My message for this is saying no. What I try to ram home to you all the time is about being a black sheep, being making your own decisions. You can try the pickup detox that I regularly mention, you know, going out the 10 for ten challenge, try not to read my stuff or anybody else's stuff, try not to watch online stuff for ten days and just go out and do pickup for yourself. My advice is meant to be liberating, it's certainly not meant to be starting a cult but I do get why some people say, okay, you've got a room full of guys, Tom you're speaking at the front or there's this pickup instructor, you're putting out material and videos and podcasts, so aren't you creating a cult? This is something different. I'm certainly not saying I have a cult of personality but I do accept that salesmen, hustlers, seducers, teachers, leaders of course have to have some charisma and magnetism. I asked you on my blog for this week's podcast to maybe watch one of the documentaries I listed. There was one by Louis Theroux, his Scientology documentary. Again, we'll come on to Scientology in a bit. There was one on the hippie commune in the seventies in LA about father Yad called the Sauce Family which started out as restaurant, then a yoga thing and then a retreat house and then he had a wife and then he opened it up to sexual healing. Good on father Yad. And then he, I've forgotten how many wives he had, ten, twelve, 15 wives or something. All these girls were 18 years old obviously, 19, 20, 21 hot girls in the seventies with father Yad giving them some sexual loving on a very deep level. And then a weird ending to that documentary which I won't say, but he's still seen as a as a cult figure. Certainly this magnetic personality, no doubt about it. Whether you say he is a incarnation of God or he was just a hustler. And the other one I asked you to watch which is a cracker is called Gringo, the dangerous life of John McAfee. You might remember the name McAfee from your antiviral software in the early days of the internet and then you might remember his name from him being a fugitive down in Belize where he was running all sorts of startup schemes. And then maybe you've heard the name John McCarthy because he tried to stand for the presidency of The United States Of America despite previous accusations of murder and gun running and drug smuggling, whatever. But it's a fascinating story about a fascinating man who's still going, who's still I think a specialist now in internet security. But watch him, watch his mannerisms, his personality, how he affects those around him. And hopefully you'll get similarities with Father Yad and Scientology leaders. Is this a new thing? Is this about the internet? Is this about game? Is this recent manipulation and spin? No. There's always been from, you know, the pharaohs, from Greek emperors, a reverence for monarchs, for heads of state, for for the divine leaders in history, people believing that they have divine powers or whatever. And then with, obviously, with photography and with sound recording and then film and then on to TV, so we're getting into Hollywood and movie making and now the internet, Of course, people's reach for this magnetic influence is is obviously a lot bigger. So propaganda spread from papyrus to the Internet. But throughout history, leadersdictators have these personality cults, religious leaders. And what the fuck is going on? Why does seemingly rational, intelligent, calm, quote unquote normal people become lemmings, become white sheeps, get herded into pens? And they come out the other side sometimes going, what the fuck happened? So really this is not about politics. It doesn't matter for the sake of learning about persuasion and pick up what your politics are. Find the common influence techniques. Look for the common threads as I say. How do these people gain power? What is their frame control like? More importantly, how do they reframe? How do they keep frame? How do they persuade others to march towards death in many cases? Why and how? And it's a good warning. You watch those documentaries certainly about things like Scientology or the Father Yad one, the source family. And you think, woah, woah, woah, woah. Don't be cannon fodder for a dictator with a personality cult. Understand that it's theatrics. Don't get played. Just stand back and think, am I getting played right now by a charismatic leader? Am I just blindly following? And perhaps some of the techniques revealed today will explain to you how that's happened. Another documentary I have watched, you can tell I'm watching a shitload of documentaries because I've I've been hibernating here in Russia but doing my quote unquote research for documentary filmmaking, loads of people saying, Tom, you've got to see this documentary about Roger Stone, the spin doctor. So it's called Get Me Roger Stone, the man behind many successful political campaigns in America. Not really what I'm interested in but a fascinating man that certainly is charismatic, magnetic, using dark triad techniques. He understands hustling and manipulation. And I love his quote, politics is show business for ugly people. So he recognizes the links between show business and politics and theatrics and Hollywood and cult of personality. So you're thinking, well, this all happens to stupid people. It never applies to intelligent people like me. I would never fall for this. I would never be in a cult. Well, a good place to start is to think about Scientology. The more popular Scientology documentary, perhaps it came out before the Louis Theroux one, is called Going Clear. Yeah. That's a cracker as well. Scientology and the Prison of Belief. And of course it looks at Travolta and Krauss but it really shines the light on David Miscavige, the extremely charismatic leader right now of Scientology who took over after the wacky, you could say mentally ill sci fi originator L1 Hubbard. But Miscavige is the is the real interesting dark triad character that you can look at. And, forget about Travolta and Krauss, look at the the people, people with PhDs, scientists, very normal rational people, their interviews, their testimonies, how they got caught up in Scientology for five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, giving away hundreds of thousands of pounds and falling for for obvious pseudo scientific waffle and gibberish. But how the fuck does David Miscavige get people to do these things? Well, the documentary answers that. And whether you support Barack Obama or you're a fan of OJ Simpson or you're a big fan of Putin or you love Castro or Kim Jong or Donald Trump obviously, you got to think what is it about the person who you perhaps idolize? You might even say you worship that person. What is it about them? Because rationally you think, oh, it's their politics. Is it? Why are some politicians, why are some religious leaders, why are some famous people, why do they have this magnetic appeal and others others don't? Well, why do men race to power? Let's get back to biology and girls for a minute. It's the apex alpha thing. Yeah. Women are attracted to power. Men are attracted to beauty. I've said many times women are attracted to power. So obviously men want to be powerful. That's why we do what we do. We want to be the top of whatever pyramid we're in. The best rock climber in our club, the best runner, the best musician, the best manager in our workplace, the best guy at school in that that social circle showing off with his skateboarding. We just want to be the apex alpha because that is what gets girls. No doubt about it. Power. So we know how fame works. I've made a podcast on a pre selection. Women find it attractive. They're just drawn to it like moths to a flame. So a good example of this is a geeky English teacher abroad or a diving instructor or think of this one. If you've read Power of Now or you know about this guy, Ercot Toll, a kind of a weedy hippie ish slightly, well, very geeky guy who is basically like a cult leader. Loads of women in that audience, 20 year olds, 25 year olds, they just find this guy magnetic and hypnotizing and therefore attractive because he's got all this power from pre selection. The scarcity principle, there's only one of him, the audience is many. The jealousy thing kicks in with them, the leader of men, all these are the mystery attraction switches. He's a protector because he's a powerful leader. So social proof through the fucking roof like a rock band. I'm someone as geeky as Alcott Torero, if he can do it, you can certainly learn from it. And for those guys, it's why they don't actively game because if you've got that level of pre selection, it happens. And obviously, as I said in that pre selection podcast, this is easier to do in night game when you can run groups and entourages and fake pre selection. In the day, it's a bit harder. But that podcast goes into how you can use pre selection to amplify your sexual market value. But anyway, all those benevolent people, you could say like Toll or Tony Robbins, are they really talking about altruism? Are they really talking about the success of that group or the survival of the species as some misinformed biologists still call it? No. Because biology doesn't care about the survival of a species. There's examples like bees and wasps and ants where yeah, there is a clever genetic shuffling of the cards which does involve groups. But it's the individual, it's the selfish gene as Richard Dawkins says, we don't have time to go into why it's not the species but it's the gene. But that's really important because whilst it might seem that a benevolent communist socialist leader is out to help his country or help his his tribe look closer because power is really coming down to that individual. That's the power struggle. He's the person women find attractive. So access to females, obviously access to land and territory. We've spoken about this when I'm talking about the meaning of wars and why men ultimately sail off a fight. Territory, yes, but access to females, fuck yeah. Okay. Women are drawn to power. So I think a lot of this as a biologist, I would say this is why cults are started. This is why a lot of guys become politicians. This is why guys scrabble to be charismatic leaders. Why they develop this cult of personality, this is why these traits exist largely in men. Okay, there's always that odd female high testosterone high testosterone example but this is a male thing because we're not attracted to powerful females but women are attracted to powerful men. So men have to learn to become powerful and on the micro scale you think, yeah, if I do teach English abroad, okay, I might be the apex alpha. If I am a ski instructor or a diving instructor or I work in a hostel, interesting. And the guy thinks, well, if I am a local politician, interesting. If I am a president of a country, oh, very interesting. If I start my own cult and have all these followers, interesting. So that's really what I think and if you, are debating well, that's nonsense, you can't just start a religion, an ideology, a belief system, well, you fucking can. There's a great documentary called Kumare, k u m a r e, I think, about a guy who is American but he pretends to be Indian, he's got Indian heritage to start a mumbo jumbo cult in The US and it goes far better than expected. And all these people join up and he invents like a language and practices and rules and they get really into it And he doesn't have the heart to break it to them that it's all fake. He has to at the end, obviously for the moral documentary reasons but they're quite shocked at how easy that was to be a charismatic leader. So you think that you can't form a religion. It really shows how and why religions involved outside of that meta spiritual need, that mystical longing. I'm talking about human power and getting laid. But Kumar is a good one for that. So let's get into the tricks, the dirty tricks of spin, of disinformation. How someone can develop a cult or personality. Think of, if you're in The US, think of House of Cards. If you're in The UK, think of, The Thick of It. So dirty tricks. Dirty tricks of Westminster and Washington and, you can even think of dirty tricks of North Korea. Again, doesn't matter about sides. Now, we're starting to think of common threads of propaganda. Yeah. So cult traits. And I'm not calling everything in this podcast a cult but certainly common traits from cults apply to all these things. So cults sharply differentiate between the in group and outsiders who they term enemies. Okay. So even if we're talking about politics or we're talking about religious leaders, think about how these cult traits apply. You develop the difference between your in group and outsiders, then you need loyalty. So therefore you need oaths. People have to pledge allegiance. Okay? For this charismatic leader to rise. The group has a strong hierarchical organization, essential. Otherwise, there would be no apex alpha. Men are not stupid. And with this, because humans are not very good at being controlled ultimately, usually breaks down. So there has to be strict control to ensure conformity and the veneration of the leader. And just those words veneration of leader straight away spring into mind, you should have historical figures, political figures, religious figures, don't know you need to explain that. But that's how it happens. And the cult has to have some kind of belief system. And I would argue that it's it's it's pretty irrelevant. It's pretty made up. If you've watched Monty Python's Life of Brian, Brian, he's not the Messiah, he's just a very naughty boy. You'll know what I'm talking about if you're British. And many cult leaders like in Kumari thing, many religious leaders, even many politicians say, yeah, I don't actually give a fuck about what I'm preaching. It's all nonsense. Jesus, look at Scientology. Look at when you get into the higher levels of the bridge. I think they call it when you pay for shit and then they reveal the truths about lizards and exploding volcanoes and aliens and you're like, what the fuck is this? But they're just laughing, the leaders. They're literally saying I can't believe people fall for this shit. So that's so that's what I'm saying. Just slow down with your politics a little bit today and think, am I believing these policies or am I believing a charismatic leader? Okay. So yeah, there's symbols. Loads of symbols. If you want to start a religion or a cult or a political party, you got to have symbols. You got to have myths. So simple stories, simple narratives. This is all for in group cohesion. So you're one of us, everyone else who isn't, they're the enemy, they're evil. Anything that's different, it's got to be hated in Scientology. It's got to be banished and they stalk people and follow people and sue people. I might even get sued for this podcast. Yeah. It's all got to be shut down. Yeah. Because the belief system is the utopia. We are going to heaven or we are these things are awaiting us. All the virgins are awaiting us or eternal life or living until you're resilient. I've forgotten what the Scientology is or this scenario in politics is going to happen. So this is the utopian ideal that we must stick to. Think of North Korea. Yeah. And if somebody, as I said, is not a member, well, they're stupid, they're blind, they're dangerous. And we've got to come up with some kind of theory as to to why. To recruit, you obviously have to proselytize. Yeah, that's cold calling. So you have to spread the message usually with a little book. In these days with technology and the internet, the message can be spread extremely quickly. Cults often believe that any means is justified to the end. So crazy things happen in cults, people get swept up to find the utopian ideal and do crazy things because these leaders can make people be like lemmings, be like sheep as I said and that's why I keep stressing, be the black sheep, do your own fucking thing. Be your own cult leader, follow yourself, don't follow Tom Torero or Tony Robbins. And all cults, all political parties, all religious leaders have at their core they say, we will triumph. We will triumph. Of course, we will triumph, you know. Join us. Be on the right side of history. Cult leaders, people with the cult of personality, magnetic leaders are extremely good. This is what it comes down to. Extremely good with frame and reframe. Whether they know it's performance art or not, I don't know. But their frame control is fantastic. Their reframes, the ability to pass tests to keep all those cult traits and beliefs going beliefs going is amazing. So you can think about Arnold Schwarzenegger in Pumping Iron, his frame. I've made a video on him. You can think about OJ Simpson. If you've seen that series about the development and the fascination with OJ Simpson, how he had that allure, that fan base. You can think of John McAfee, as I said, Tony Robbins, any religious leader, any political leader, obviously people are now obsessing about Trump. But just think about their frame. Alright. And what you can learn from their frame. I'm not talking about their policies or politics. How do they handle shit tests? How does Vladimir Putin project some real alpha badass traits that you can learn from? They can be benevolent dictators. I'm not listing people and saying all these people are wicked and evil and all dark triad is wrong. No. I've said how dark triad is integral to the player to it's the dark side of game which is part of game, which is part of being charismatic with women. Benevolent dictators, what's the old saying? One person's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist. Same with the leader. You might say, fuck you know Putin, that's terrible. But another person says, no, he's our leader. Same with North Korea, same with your politics. You obviously side with that person, many people don't. So yeah, I'm not saying it's all bad, benevolent dictators we can talk about but obviously many leaders in history have to rule with fear and intimidation. So we see the spying and the paranoia that sets in. The narcissism goes out of control. These are the dark triad things. The Machiavellianism, the sneakiness, I've spoken about that. And the psychopathy. There's definitely a Kafkaesque to all this, you know, a heart of darkness thing, especially when we start talking about pimps. So to have this control, yeah, you have to rule with an iron rod, an iron fist. Is that what they say? With the fear, with the intimidation. There's the paranoia, the Macbeth like paranoia. So even though you become king, it's like somebody's gonna try and oust you and there's people spying on you, there's people who want your power whether that's real or not. So that's why we shall finish this podcast because it's flying by, just looking at the watch. We shall finish by recommending once again the famous book called 48 Laws of Power. You've probably read it if you've been in the seduction community a long time by Robert Green. Robert Green is not a pickup artist so a lot of the laws contradict each other. They're a bit woolly. He doesn't say how you can apply them, certainly not with girls. But a good pickup artist can just scan the 48 laws of power and say, yep, that's true, that's true, that's true, that's bollocks. I know how to do that. I know how to do that. And that's what I did. So I'm going to read the ones I selected and rather than just thinking about pickup, think about how it applies to creating a cult personality, creating a cult, creating a political party, creating a religious following. Think of a leader in history that you consider to be very charismatic and persuasive for good or for evil, quote unquote, however you perceive them. And to finish, yeah, I'll pick out the laws of power that stood out from Robert Green's book and see the similarities. So the first one that stood out says, use your enemies and hire former enemies. You see that in the John McAfee documentary. The second one I picked out says, conceal your intentions, keep people off balance. The third one says, say less than is needed. Be vague. Oh, there's vagueness in politics and religion. The next one says, court attention at all costs. Yes. Yes. Yes. Whether you're a player, a politician or a religious leader, yes. A sneaky one. Let others do the work but take credit. The next one says, keep people dependent on you. Oh yes, that's happened in history. Be selectively honest. Generosity disarms. Pose as a friend, work as a spy. Keep others in suspended terror. So ruling with the iron fist. Recreate yourself. Be the master of your own image. Oh, yes. Play on people's need to believe. So here's where Robert Green really nails the cult of personality. He says, keep your words vague but full of promise, enthusiasm over rationality, give disciples rituals, ask them to make sacrifices, offer a cause, a new faith, people want to believe in something. Correct. Be royal in your fashion, act like a king. Have the swagger we say in pickup. Yeah? Create compelling spectacles. People are drawn to drama. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter. So strike at the source, basically, banish those people who don't follow, don't negotiate, just banish. Preach the need for change but never reform too much at once. Oh, how that applies to politics. And finally, assume formlessness. If you have a visible plan, you're open to attack, so stay adaptable and on the move. And there you go. That brings us three sixty back to that lay report I wrote from Russia where I'm talking about the analogies with chess. We've gone over time. That was podcast a 127 on the cult of personality. The next podcast will be recorded in The UK, but perhaps I will see you in Paris before then on the twenty sixth, 08:30 in Belushi's Gardenaur. Keep grabbing like by the horns, thank you for supporting what I do and from brush and finally this year I shall say goodbye. Comrades, redania!