A principle that we might call the Law of the Sex Shop, or alternatively the Law of the Michael Bolton Concert, goes as follows: if you run into someone you know in a place you're ashamed to be, you really shouldn't be embarrassed. After all, you both decided to go there. So the other person has no right to think less of you, do they?

I've had to struggle to keep this in mind recently as I've arrived, several times, at a doorway on the fringes of Soho in London, where I've glanced left and right, then scuttled up three flights of stairs to my destination. It's not a sex shop, actually; it's the section of Waterstone's on Piccadilly where they keep books on new age topics. As I've mentioned before, I have in the past left my bookshop comfort zone - the popular psychology section - and trespassed in the troubling world of mind/body/spirit. But that was mainly to laugh at such patently absurd works as The Secret. This time, I wanted to pursue the heretical hunch that, amid the absurdity, there might be something worth learning.

This wasn't about learning to love all those books on angels, astrology or communicating with the dead: they really are weapons-grade nonsense. But it hardly seems fair that the field of "spirituality" should be divided up between traditionally religious people on the one hand and crystal-botherers on the other. There must be hundreds of thousands of people who, like me, are unimpressed by new age mumbo jumbo, and who think Richard Dawkins is right, in his annoying way, about the nonexistence of a supernatural god, but who aren't prepared to leave the matter there - even if, when asked to define spirituality, they can do no better than bluster about the feeling of awe you get at the top of a mountain.

Which is why I'm delighted to report the publication of The Lost Art Of Being Happy: Spirituality For Sceptics, by Tony Wilkinson. Wilkinson's book is almost comically down to earth: he's a former investment banker, and I don't mean it as an insult when I say that he writes like one. The book is a filleting of the psychological insights of the major world religions, stripped of supernaturalism and condensed into a set of "inner skills" in five areas: mindfulness, benevolence, enjoyment, the ability to let go and how we talk to ourselves.

To some extent, this book is an update of Roger Walsh's Essential Spirituality, which boils down the world religions to seven entirely un-supernatural insights. Religious people may balk, but both works make a convincing case that spiritual wisdom is easily detachable from myth and mysticism, not to mention organised religion. But nor do they fall for the self-help trap of making wisdom purely instrumental - a tool for achieving the perfect relationship or career. I hope it's the start of a trend: popular books about the "inner life" (Wilkinson's phrase) that don't require religious belief, or an obsession with self-improvement. It's your inner life, for goodness sake: isn't that a good enough reason to want to pay attention to it?

oliverburkeman@theguardian.com