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0 pointsFlankk4y ago0 comments

I'm not reading too far into things, I'm looking at things objectively. At the beginning of the book, Allen thanks his "spiritual coach J-R." He is referring to John-Roger, the founder of the MSIA cult. GTD started as seminars given to members of corporations. It is no coincidence that the MSIA cult started as a series of spiritual seminars. John-Roger went on to author a self-help book called Life 101 [1]. Paul Allen went on to author a self-help book called Getting Things Done. You can find online allegations of the seminars being used to recruit people into the cult. There are allegations of the cult telling women to abstain from marriage and perform sexual acts on their leader who is god incarnate.

[1] https://www.amazon.ca/Life-101-Peter-McWilliams/dp/093158078...

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mlac4y ago

Slight correction for those reading -> David Allen (not Paul of MSFT) went on to author the self-help book called GTD.

But that’s fascinating. Reading the acknowledgements is further than I had read into it - I honestly never looked at the acknowledgements in the years of having the book, let alone researched J-R or heard of MSIA until this comment.

For me personally, I am not quite sure what to do with that information. It looks like J-R is dead, and if anyone took my original book recommendation as saying “join MSIA” and go to spiritual seminars, that’s not what I meant. GTD frees up your time and attention to do whatever you want with it. That’s why I also recommended of Essentialism, Make Time, and Four Thousand Weeks. I guess someone could dig into it and wind up at spiritual seminars. Essentialism is written by a Mormon, and I wouldn’t think that people who read that book suddenly go and join the Mormon church (or to even know that about the author).

I guess it is sort of like separating songs from their creators? I can like the music, but not be a huge fan or follower of the musician?

FlankkOP4y ago

Yes, nothing at all to do with Paul Allen, the wires just crossed in my brain. No I don't think it's anything like separating songs from their creators. L. Ron Hubbard conducted seminars on Dianetics and later authored the self-help book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. As you probably know, he later went on to found the church of scientology. I am a programmer not a journalist so this is as far as I'll go. I think the moral of the story is don't take these books as gospel and don't treat them as your bible.