Get off your Om: aloe vera juice and the new spirituality

When I arrive at Body Works West off Ladbroke Grove to meet Daniele (who, like Madonna, goes only by his first name) one of his very body beautiful clients sweeps around the door of the Pilates studio and declares to me that this man is really wonderful.

Daniele looks a little embarrassed but perhaps he is just being modest, because in fact this health gurus life method already has a committed celebrity following and Lily Cole, Annie Lennox, Colin Firth and Bob Geldof are just a few of Danieles disciples who have effused about their devotion on his website.

They have all taken to what Daniele calls non-spiritual spirituality essentially a supposed healthy mix of Western and Eastern philosophies, practices and exercise but without any of what Daniele calls the airy-fairy stuff. Since the age of 22 Daniele has been collecting the techniques which together make up his method. Now aged 57, he has gone from being a masseur to becoming one of the first Pilates teachers in Europe to study yoga, meditation, psychoanalysis, hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming.

He aims to turn his clients into spiritual people but that, he says, does not mean sitting in a room chanting Om. In fact spirituality is nothing to do with religion. It is just an attitude towards life, he says and that attitude is about achieving good health, a strong and supple body, a clear and peaceful mind, success, happiness and fulfilment.

This is the premise for the book he has just written on the subject The Human Being of the Future: A non-spiritual guide to spirituality, which has a foreword by Annie Lennox and starts with teaching you to get your body in order.

Ive met people who chant a mantra every day and think they are spiritual people, but they cant even go to the toilet, he says.

Daniele says he eats very little himself (aloe vera drinks, algae, fruit and vegetables are the main ingredients of his diet) and although he is not strict about banning anything from his diet other than alcohol, he avoids meat and what he calls dead foods, which is anything processed.

So for my session, we start with what I eat. I dont consume a great deal of meat but tea, alcohol, bread and pasta are all things that I am loath to give up. Daniele is fortunately not insistent but does say that I should get on the aloe vera juice, pronto.

Next he asks me about experiences in my past that have had an impact on me emotionally. I struggle with this because on this rather average day I cant really think of anything almost certainly testament to how well I suppress everything unpleasant.

When I finally have something in mind, Daniele asks me to think of my emotional response to the event and, observing my gaze, explains that I look down when thinking about this memory.