I've seen this stuff work for people but you have to realize that the guys who follow this pua stuff approach a ton of girls on a regular basis. Like one guy might approach 25 girls in a given day, get phone numbers from 10 of them, and actually hang out with like 3 or 4 of them. So it is kind of hard to say how good it actually works because you might have the same success rate if you talked to that many girls just being yourself. I think the most beneficial thing about following the mystery method, and other pua styles like it, is that it forces you to get over your fear of approaching women, especially hot ones.