So the other day I was browsing Rational Wiki—yes, I know they are dyed in the wool leftists, but unlike most of their political brethren they’re fairly sensible and some of their articles are pretty good. Plus “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” and all that.

I was doing a bit of a “wiki walk”, reading this or that article and I eventually came across one titled “Crank magnetism”. This article discusses how crackpot conspiracy theorists tend to lump all conspiracy theories into their own idiotic worldview, and how somebody who is into one crank theory is probably into other crankery as well.

That’s certainly true based on the evidence I’ve seen, but the more I think of the phrase “crank magnetism”, I think of another phenomenon, one that is sort of the mirror inverse of the phenomenon listed above. Which is to say that, instead of one crackpot being attracted to many crackpot ideas, the term could just as easily apply to the phenomenon of many people tending to be attracted to one crackpot, and then those people make up crackpot ideas based on the first one, and they’ll attract even further crackpots, and so on and so forth.

Call it “madman’s charisma”. “What do I mean”, you might be asking yourself? Well, just take a casual glance at the annals of history! Have raving lunatics EVER failed to attract an audience? Not by any metric I’ve seen!

 Pretty much every cult leader I’m aware of is someone who has that “animal magnetism” around them. And at the very least they’ll use that magnetism to monopolize the women in their group. You certainly don’t see any mumbling simps leading cults

I have a theory for why this is: As I’ve discussed in previous articles, the key elements of charisma are power, presence, and warmth, in various proportions depending on the individual person. Cult leaders certainly use all three, but for here let’s focus on one; the power.

What does a powerful person do? They’re very commanding, often but not necessarily loud, and more often than not, they look like they know what they’re doing.

As you go through life you’ll realize that most people don’t want the responsibility of being a leader; most people are born followers. But a raving lunatic has no self-esteem issues or self doubt: he is 100% confident. In short, he seems like he knows what he’s doing because in his mind he has no reason to doubt himself. And as such legions of fans follow specifically BECAUSE he seems like he knows what’s up.

This also ties into another phenomenon: that of cognitive dissonance and willful self denial. People who have been snookered into a blatant falsehood are more likely to believe in it rather than rethink their choices—especially they have put some sort of long term investment into it (Whether it be time, labor, or money).

Look at the people who buy into Scientology, or the raving lunatics who think they can float, teleport, or have some other magical powers (whether it be, healing, levitation, or the myriad martial arts nonsense that’s out there). In my own work, I have profiled many people who are essentially cult leaders, using martial arts as a way to indoctrinate followers. You’d be surprised at how many people will take me to task over it, and downvote my work because I dared to insult their “gurus”.

PUA is another font of “madman charisma”, because a lot of people want to believe there’s some magical trick you can use to attract women without effort or self improvement. Even if it only snookers a few people, you can get your moneys worth from those people. How else do you think a chode like Vince Kelvin makes a living?

(Yes, I know Vince apparently lives with his parents)

Vince is a delusional nutbag, but he manages to convince people he knows what he’s talking about. Through mostly lies, yes, but in watching his videos, I do genuinely think he deludes himself into thinking he’s a ladies man. Why else would he show these videos of him blatantly fake-kissing women without any hint of self awareness?

Another thing that astounds me in my work is that so many of these people are attached to each other when you dig a little deeper—and this illustrates the alternate definition of “Crank magnetism” I delineated above. So many times in my research I see Master Shithead studied under another shitty martial artist I profiled. Bryce Dallas had disciples who defend him to this day, as did Ashida Kim and Dillman (just the other day I got an angry comment from some assclown defending kyusho jitsu)

And the PUAs? How many of those dickheads trace themselves back to some mid-90s Ross Jeffries seminar? At least half of the ones I’ve profiled are directly linked to Jeffries!

The more you look, the more you see how many cranks spawn from other cranks. It is your job as an intelligent person to avoid it, and steer the credulous away. For in some cases it can become cultic behavior. And for those of you who are into studying criminals and whackjobs (as I am), there are many tactics they use to sucker people beyond just raw charisma (although that certainly is one). To help you avoid them, a discussion of those tactics will come next time.