The Royal Treatment: How You Can Take Home the Pleasures of the Great Luxury Spas, was my first book issued by a major publisher. Looking back, I can see now how much wishful thinking and starry-eyed romanticism regarding my own profession were sprinkled throughout its pages. It did manage to convey, however, my sincere hope (a hope that remains to this date) that everyone, regardless of their background or circumstances in life, deserves to experience the caring attention that clients at luxury spas receive as a matter of course. “Everybody deserves the royal treatment,” was my motto for years, and I still believe it to an extent, though now after much life experience I can see that certain people actually do not deserve the royal treatment; they deserve, rather, a prison cell or some other form of punishment. Or at the very least they deserve to be given a wide berth by other people. What I’m referring to, then, is the rest of us, the 99% of humanity that is struggling along doing the best we can, with no desire or intention to hurt or control others. WE deserve the royal treatment. You can see it in our eyes. Hear it in our voices.

So, I continue with this mission. As readers of my latest book, Touchy Subjects, will note, I have been working of late with my friend Rob Buckley who founded Himalayan Healers, the first massage school in Nepal, which focuses on training “untouchables” how to do massage. It’s a beautiful thing, and it has informed all my recent, modest efforts at massage-specific philanthropy.

So, while The Royal Treatment may be somewhat dated now, and many other books with more luxurious photography have come out offering basically the same thing, for those of you interested in the real, organic, caring roots of the spa industry, you will be happy to note that used copies are available on Amazon for a penny.