I had never heard of Don Miguel Ruiz when a friend let me borrow this minuscule book. After the first chapter, I went searching to find out if Ruiz was a part of a larger movement. Sure enough, he was: New Thought. Reading about it gave me further clarity into the style and content of this tract-like prayer book.
I won't lie—my first reaction to this was a hearty eye roll. While New Thought might be an attractive alternative—a balm, even—for those healing from otherwise orthodox or "mainstream" religious trauma, I had a hard time buying in; not, as some might suppose, due to an adherence to the comforts of tradition, but because this line of thinking is unmoored from any tradition or substantive anchor at all, beyond what Ruiz seems to have thought up himself. It's diet mysticism-lite.
Don't be mistaken: it's not the somewhat fluid, airy, almost cosmic way in which Ruiz writes that annoys me; it's the way in which he speaks with such moral certainty about assertions that have no other backing than his attempt at co-opting semi-religious, semi-spiritual language to prop up his notions. Don't get me wrong, some of his ideas are, in fact, healing, and tinged with the influence of healthy psychology.
Mostly, though, this little book became a toilsome travail to get through.