GTD 'cult'

so a friend of mine sent me this message. I am a big fan of GTD and find it very useful. I'm just puttin' this out there.

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I was excited to sit down to read "Getting Things Done" today. It's a great gift. I was so excited that I even read the acknowledgments, to be complete about the whole thing. At the end of the acknowledgments I noticed that David Allen thanks someone named "J-R" for being his "spiritual coach."

Uh-oh. "J-R" seemed like it might stand for John-Roger -- the controversial cult leader and spiritual guru. And it does.

http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/msia.html

David Allen, his wife, and many of his employees are ministers in the MSIA (Movement of Spritual Inner Awareness), John-Roger's church:

http://www.ndh.org/template.php3?ID=65 http://www.davidco.com/coaches_corner/Ana_Maria_Gonz%E1lez/article14.html (employee quoting John-Roger)

Anti-cult websites accuse GTD of being part of a program to recruit people into MSIA. Their view seems paranoid to me, but you can read it for yourself:

http://forum.rickross.com/viewtopic.php?t=2193 http://forum.rickross.com/viewtopic.php?p=15025&sid=e3195755a2185f9b4710580921d3f527

Now, I'm not saying that Getting Things Done isn't a good book about priorities and organization. David Allen may have very good advice about that stuff. But I am saying don't go to a David Allen seminar, get mixed up with the David Allen Company, or get too involved with the hard-core GTD crowd -- at least not without taking some anti-brainwashing measures. Seriously. This John-Roger character and his followers are not a joke.

I learned about John-Roger a long time ago, as it happens, because in high school I read a self-help book called "Life 101" that he "co-wrote" with Peter McWilliams, the poet and anti-drug-war activist. In 1994, not long after I read "Life 101," McWilliams wrote an expose called "Life 102: What to Do When Your Guru Sues You." McWilliams left MSIA in 1994 after 15 years of being brainwashed. It turned out that John-Roger manipulated him into giving him co-authorship in return for keeping McWilliams alive. You see, John-Roger had the power to keep McWilliams alive because -- and this will surprise you -- John-Roger claims to be the incarnation of God on earth.

John-Roger has also made headlines in connection with Arianna Huffington -- who admits to being a close friend and who has been accused (though she's never admitted it) of being an MSIA minister as well.

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