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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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 I check in here once...Submitted by Joe E. Ramone on February 25, 2007 - 5:01am.
I check in here once and a while. I can't believe this issue is still going. I am not going to read the whole thing. Here is the proper analogy. Yoga can be taught with a spiritual framework or not. Iyengar yoga is the best example of yoga taught without a spiritual framework. I think this is the most widely taught type of yoga, but I'm not sure of that. If you studied a large group of people that either were very spiritual or wanted to be very spiritual, the vast majority of them would get more into their chosen form of spirituality or religion if they practiced yoga. And I don't care how fundamentalist in nature it is. The simple reason for this is yoga increases your ability to concentrate and relax. GTD does the same thing from a different angle. It's better if you do both. The exceptions to this would likely be people that could be psychologically measured as feeling fake and are otherwise screwed up. As far as GTD procedures in and of themselves creating a cult like phenomenon, you have got to be kidding me. There is no mystery to it and you still have to be almost totally self-directed with in a couple of months or so of starting it or you aren't really doing GTD properly. How many cults operate like that? I am not saying there are never cults or otherwise bad results sometimes emanating from meditation or different forms of eastern exercise. It's up to you to use your head and be a good consumer. Over simplifying this subject either way is dumb. » POSTED IN:
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