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GTD 'cult'
duus | Sep 5 2006
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. [INDENT] 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. [/INDENT] 72 Comments
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 To Duus: thanks for posting...Submitted by ops30 on September 10, 2006 - 4:21pm.
To Duus: thanks for posting the info. I've enjoyed reading this thread and I appreciate you starting it. To All: I think GTD's focus is on the operational level of your life. To find fault with GTDs premise one would have to disagree with it's core concepts, by believing... - It is better to keep things in your head instead of writing them down so you can think about what they mean. ...those are just a few that came to my mind as I was typing, but they represent my challenge to anyone who thinks that GTD's ideas are bunk. Everyone has a framework they apply to their life. Everyone decides how to handle "stuff", even if they decide not to handle it, they are still deciding based on a framework that they may not be aware of on the concious level. That being said, I think it is always a good idea to be critical of whatever you are accepting. Far too many people walk through this world blindly accepting whatever is in front of them without applying reason. I see GTD as a method, not a religion. If you run a google definition search on method, you get: "a way of doing something, especially a systematic way; implies an orderly logical arrangement (usually in steps)". I've always figured David Allen had a different world-view than my own, just from reading articles about him where he mentioned that he had studied zen buddhism. However, I've yet to see where he promotes GTD as anything other than a way to manage the "stuff" in your life. That is what GTD has helped me to do. My .02... » POSTED IN:
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