From Shaman to Showman: Don Miguel Ruiz and the Monetization of Mysticism
By Maxine Drell
In 1997, Don Miguel Ruiz gave us a slim volume that passed from nightstands to yoga mats to Instagram captions with the subtle gravity of scripture. The Four Agreements was not marketed as revolutionary, yet it became exactly that; a self-help koan for the spiritually curious, a talisman for the post-religious, a primer for those hoping to deprogram themselves from the American disease of achievement.
Ruiz offered no steps, no acronyms, no binders. Just four deceptively simple agreements, drawn from what he called Toltec wisdom: Be impeccable with your word. Don’t take anything personally. Don’t make assumptions. Always do your best.
They were soft, yes. But also steel. The book suggested that radical personal freedom was available, not through conquest, but through clarity. It was an act of resistance against the inner critic, the cultural script, and the emotional inheritance of trauma.
It sold over 12 million copies.
And now?
Ruiz is back , or rather, Don Miggy Rux, as he now styles himself in what appears to be a half-ironic rebrand involving streetwear, a YouTube channel, and a TikTok channel titled Impeccable Chainz.
His new book, The Five Disagreements™, is not a continuation. It is a capitulation.
“If the world insists on being noisy,” Ruiz writes in the opening pages, “then silence is just bad marketing.”
Where once there was mysticism, now there is management. The Agreements have been reversed, or perhaps digested and excreted, by a culture that could not metabolize sincerity without turning it into content. Ruiz, now openly disillusioned, has decided to lean in.
The Five Disagreements are as follows:
- Be Impeccably Strategic With Your Brand
- Take Everything Personally
- Assume Wildly, Judge Fast
- Never Do Your Best – Just Look Busy
- Be Gullible, But Learn to Monetize
Each “Disagreement” is explained in a chapter that reads like a TED Talk on ayahuasca. There are tips on building ‘parasocial intimacy’, optimizing your trauma for engagement, and making “peace with the grift.” The footnotes are hyperlinks to affiliate codes.
In one of the more chilling sections, Ruiz recounts a moment of clarity in a meditation retreat, where a fellow attendee interrupted their silent journaling to casually offer to connect him with a trauma-to-retreat pipeline branding consultant.” He writes:
“That night I wept. Not for myself, but for the realization that I, too, had become content. A memeable mystic. A carousel slide in someone’s productivity stack.”
And yet he doubled down.
From Oracle to Operator
What’s remarkable is not Ruiz’s fall, but how predictable it feels. We live in a time where every act of introspection is immediately commodified. The moment you locate your shadow, there’s a Shopify link for shadow-work crystals. There is no inner journey anymore, only journeys™.
The spiritual industrial complex is no longer subtle. It’s a multibillion-dollar funnel with sage-scented copywriting and crypto soul dust. Ruiz simply got tired of swimming upstream.
In the book’s final pages, he admits: “The real fifth agreement is: If you can’t beat the algorithm, become the algorithm.”
Wisdom Defeated by Engagement
Reading The Five Disagreements™ is like watching a beloved teacher return from sabbatical wearing a Supreme hoodie and asking if you’ve considered franchising your pain. It’s uncomfortable. And, frankly, brilliant. Ruiz has not sold out — he’s staged a satire. Or a confession. Or maybe just a proof-of-concept.
If The Four Agreements was a whisper of soul reclamation, The Five Disagreements™ is the echo of that whisper, auto-tuned and sold back to you.
What remains is the haunting question: Did he change? Or did we?
And worse, did we ever deserve him?
Maxine Drell is a senior contributor at The Underground Mirror. She is known in the Montrose Community for her sound bath sessions at the local Barnes & Noble
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