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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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 Dr. Phil on cultsSubmitted by FreeWilly on September 24, 2006 - 1:27pm.
There was an interesting Dr. Phil show about a religious cult. What was interesting here is that a large part of this cult was about regulating and controlling and managing their members behaviors. This is why so many cultish groups gravitate to so-called "time management" type systems. Its the perfect tool to begin to Influence a person on a daily basis, or even an hourly, or minute by minute basis. The bottom line, even though there are those who are trying to ignore the basic facts, and to be MSIA Aplogists, and to try to pretend that somehow GTD is neutral...are that... -MSIA is literally a New Age religious cult, run by a psychopath by the name of John-Roger, who has a horrendous record. Its just goes on and on. There is a very serious Buyer Beware warning on David Allen. He has a slick public image, and a good sales pitch, and lots of MSIA followers to pump him up in the blogosphere. ...those are exactly the type of educated white-collar folks they are targeting. There is a weird cult-like obsession, and herd-mentality with all the GTD hype, and now we all now why. » POSTED IN:
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