I noticed long ago when I read Getting Things Done, that David Allen thanked a person named J-R who he called his spiritual coach. I recall wondering who that might have been.
Recently I was reviewing a book from an author Sally McGhee, who used to be a partner with David Allen in a company called Productivity Development Group. In Sally McGhee's book, she also acknowledges her spiritual teacher, John Roger.
John-Roger goes by the name J-R, so obviously this is who David Allen is thanking in the front of his book.
What is interesting about this, is that J-R, John-Roger, is an extremely controversial individual, who one can find out quite a bit about by doing some Googling.This is something worth looking into very carefully.
For me it explains and clarifies some of the positions and directions that David Allen takes in his books.
There was a critical book written about John-Roger, J-R, but this book is now not available, but it would be in your library system. The customer reviews at Amazon are very interesting.
Life 102: What to Do When Your Guru Sues You (Hardcover)
by Peter McWilliams
[
www.amazon.com]
The book 'Do It, Let's Get Off Our Buts" used to be listed as being by John-Roger, J-R from MSIA. But that's where it starts getting weird.
Peter McWilliams, is the guy who really wrote all those Life 101 and Do It books, but put John-Rogers name on the cover, as he was involved in this MSIA cult at the time. He tells the inside story about all of it in this book.
John-Roger's church MSIA, links to the DavidCo website.
[
www.msia.org]
Googling J-R, John-Roger, turns up some interesting info.
[
www.google.com]
I only figured out recently that David Allen was a Minister and Initiate in this MSIA group. There are a number of methods and presuppositions within GTD that are questionable and not empirical, but I did not know their origin until now. Some of these ideas came more to the surface in David Allen's recent book Ready For Anything.
A person can look into how groups like MSIA operate under the leadership of a charismatic leader, and carry out LGAT seminars, and how this connects with the GTD system and structure.
There are definitely certain central parts and embedded ideas and philosophies within GTD that come from MSIA. David Allen has been involved in it for 34 years, so that's since he was about 27 years old. Also, the book Ready For Anything has a lot more material that is also coming from that direction, and I found some of it highly dubious even before I knew its origin.
I find it very interesting that both David Allen, and Sally McGhee who both teach very similar methods are both followers of J-R. David Allen has referred to J-R as the "Mystical Traveler" and said in blog he was "Off to see the Wizard".
If one carefully looks into the MSIA J-R thing, its gets extremely bizarre, with charges of plagiarism, connections to Paul Twitchell and Eckankar, and J-R is to say the minimum, and extremely controversial individual.
Here is an article about John-Roger called "The JR Controversy". Here are some links, in case one of them is not available.
[
www.caic.org.au]
[
home.hetnet.nl]
[
72.14.203.104]
Freedom of religion is paramount in the USA, but full-disclosure is also just as important. It is also useful to analyze which ideas have an empirical basis, and which do not. There are a number of concepts and presuppositions interwoven into GTD that appear to come directly from MSIA.
From my perspective, it has nothing to do with religion at all. MSIA has run very controversial LGAT business and other personal seminars, under various changing guises and fronts like Insight Seminars, over the course of many decades.
David Allen credits Russell Bishop in his book, and Russell Bishop came from Lifespring, and was one of the creators of Insight Seminars, and David Allen worked for Insight Seminars, which is owned by MSIA.
[
perso.wanadoo.fr]
J-R blatantly uses every technical trick in the book on people, in terms of 'thought reform' and the entire technical library of the LGAT seminar system that has evolved over decades. J-R has been the mastermind and 'Wizard of Oz behind the curtain' behind all sorts of ventures, as due to all the bad press he has had, he often keeps himself out of the limelight in certain arenas.
So its not about religion whatsoever, or even New Age beliefs.
Its about the technical system and structure of the LGAT 'personal productivity' seminar and 'educational systems' as practiced by MSIA/Insight for many decades, and possible connections or influences with the structure and embedded presuppositions within the GTD system.
Did anyone else know David Allen was a Minister, advanced Initiate and 34 year member in a type of spiritual church lead by a controversial charismatic leader (who some call a cult leader), that has conducted LGAT-style business and personal development seminars for many decades, under a cloud of enormous controversy and very serious allegations? I did not know this, and I find that relevant, as it does explain some things, and probably many folks will also find that interesting and surprising as well.
If you look at the books acknowledgements, J-R gets the last thanks right before his wife. "deepest thanks go to my spiritual coach, J-R, for being such an awesome guide and consistent reminder of my real priorities".
David has been closely associated with J-R and his church for 34 years, and still is.
J-R is a highly controversial person to say the least, and to be honest, it does make me question David Allen's judgement to be associating himself with John-Roger, after everything that has gone down with that guy. I personally think John-Roger is a flat out con-artist, and of very dubious character at best, and I do not think he is in the least a type of Godman and Mystical Traveler, which is literally what he claims he is. Its some truly bizarro stuff he is selling. Also, the emotional Aura Balance stuff does not inspire confidence either.
Also, the fact connections with Insight seminars are highly relevant. When Dr. Margaret Singer, who was the world's top expert in this area, writes that Insight Seminars was reported as a front group to recruit people into MSIA, then this needs to be looked into.
I am not saying David Allen is covering up his past or current affiliations, but I have always wondered why his past was always represented in such a vague way. He openly talks about Martial Arts, but not the John-Roger connection. But, he does give J-R the second highest thanks in his book, so its obviously something he is very proud of.
One can begin to look more closely into how the teachings, beliefs, organizational structures, seminars, and marketing, of J-R and MSIA intersect with GTD in terms of some of many of the embedded assumptions and presuppositions. That obviously would take some time and careful analysis.
I can see some connections with parts of GTD, in the sense of it being a 'totalist' type of system, it does contain some aspects of 'thought reform', personality marketing, and it does contain various embedded assumptions about how the human mind operates, which may or may not be accurate.
One quick example is the idea that writing down 'all' of your open loops makes you have less stress. Is there any empirical psychological research that proves this? It might be true, it might not. What if writing down the most crucial open loops give some benefit, but trying to capture 'all' of them, is self defeating and creates more stress, as its an impossible task? Where is the empirical evidence (not anecdotal) that writing down all of your 'open loops' reduces stress? What if it raises stress?
Also, the part about renegotiating all of ones commitments is pure LGAT stuff, that is vintage J-R. Is anxiety really caused by breaking our own agreements with our self? What if trying to clarify all of our agreements with our self makes us more stressed, as again, its another impossible and obsessive task? What if modifying those agreements does not work as advertised?
For the sake of argument, what if writing down everything actually increases stress? I don't know if it does, but it might. What if a better approach is to not sweat the small stuff? What if GTD is ultimately an undoable system, which contains some incorrect embedded assumptions from some dubious sources (like J-R) that have not been empirically researched?
Certainly some of the presuppositions embedded within GTD are not correct.
Its not an accident that people have talked about 'drinking the GTD Kool-Aid' and that Fast Company called 'GTD: A New Cult for the Info Age'. Obviously that is meant in jest, but if one takes 3 steps back, and thinks very carefully they might see some things they had not noticed before, on the higher end structural level of GTD, in the area of some of its embedded presuppositions about how the human mind and emotions operate.