Three years ago, Whisper wrote a great post, which has since become a classic: The Five Stages of Red Pill. It dealt with the psychological process of unplugging, observing that it generally happened in five distinct stages.

There is a similar observation to be made about the parallel rational process of unplugging. It also happens in five distinct phases:

Level 0 - Normieland

This is where nearly all men live. People at this level believe TRP is a hideous hive of scum and villainy. They take their dating advice, if any, from pop culture and friends. They're not necessarily sexless, but they pay a high price in psychological suffering, time and money for it.

Level 1 - Superficial acceptance

This is the beginning of the journey. Our man has accepted that TRP is mostly right, but he doesn't actually believe it. He applies the advice tentatively, doing 10 hours of reading and commenting for every 1 minute of IRL work he puts in. Most readers of the subreddit are at this level.

Level 2 - Revelation

Either by decision or accident, our man has done more to apply the advice IRL, and has come to the shocking revelation that it works in a very real, tangible sense. His reading to action ratio improves dramatically. However, he still doesn't believe that the more outrageous stuff is really real. Many men are content at this level and don't progress further.

Level 3 - Depravity

An event might have triggered his curiosity, or else our man has decided to see how far he can push it. He experiments with the more Machiavellian and outlandish parts of TRP, discovers that they work with frightening reliability, and typically binges in more exotic pursuits because he's never even thought that stuff was actually possible. Only a small minority ever reach this level.

Level 4 - Enlightenment

Having seen just how deep the rabbit hole goes, our man is now fully aware of his options. He realizes that TRP truly is a toolset, and consciously uses it to achieve what he wants, free from both limiting beliefs and the need to see how far things can be pushed.


Combined with Whisper's Five Stages, the Five Levels enable a near-complete understanding of every user's place in the process. For every level of rational understanding there is a corresponding five-stage psychological process: each new layer of knowledge requires its own psychological adjustment.

For example, you can have a man in the anger stage of the depravity level: he hates that women truly are willing to debase themselves in response to Machiavellian game. That is entirely different from the anger stage of a man at the superficial acceptance level, who is merely angry that women don't reward Nice Guys like has believed all his life.

We are one big cauldron where people from every stage and level mix together, which gives rise to concern trolling, tone policing and similar frictions: people genuinely do not understand or believe what others further along the process are saying.

For the individual user, the only way to tell the grain from the chaff is real life action. You will never be able to figure out which advice works and which is bullshit, which results are achievable and which are a nerd's fantasy, without putting TRP into practice and seeing for yourself. Take this post to be both a guideline to understand what is posted here, as well as an encouragement to go out there and do the work.