I went for a tarot reading expecting it to be rubbish, but it absolutely blew my mind

The author Elizabeth Jenner, whose appropriately-named debut The Magic Places came out earlier this year, introduced me to Goddess oracle cards in the spring – rather than the cards you find in tarot, like the Six of Cups, Knave of Cups and High Priestess, each card features a different goddess, although both styles feature cards with core meanings.

Jenner first tried them while on a New Year yoga retreat. “The card I pulled really resonated with me, and when I got home I bought my own set,” she tells me. Sometimes I’ll pull a spread and do more of a full reading for me or a friend, and sometimes I’ll just pull one to use as a guide for a particular question or project. It’s fun to do, but I’ve also found them to be uncannily accurate! Whether or not you believe in the cards, it can be a very helpful and reassuring way of formally setting an intention, raising a particular issue, or validating a decision you’re in the process of making.”

There’s something about the cards, whichever kind you choose, that makes you see things differently. GLAMOUR contributor Caroline O’Donoghue got back into traditional tarot last Christmas and was struck by its impact. “Friends I’ve known for years were opening up about their anxieties, their relationships and the things they didn’t know quite how to express but suddenly a card could sum up for them perfectly,” she says – the latest episode of her School For Dumb Women podcast has a great section on the history of the tarot.

Last month O’Donoghue started a tarot diary to keep track of how she felt. “It’s amazing how regularly the card speaks to what I’m experiencing: it’ll pick up when I’m feeling tired, or overwhelmed, and will often give me a very distinct ‘calm down love, the sky’s not falling in’ directive. It’s not only improved my knowledge of tarot, but made me more atuned to my own emotional state: which is therapeutic, because I’m the kind of person who just sort of thinks they’re “fine” all the time, until I’m distinctly not-fine.”

So I blink at Harte/Waugh and say, “Yes. Well – openminded.”

And people are becoming more openminded, so much so that Waugh has written a new series of novels under her Harte pseudonym, focusing on a tarot reader who helps the police in their criminal investigations. The first instalment, The Prime of Ms Dolly Green, is out now.

“Of course, tarot on its own can’t solve crimes – we need factual evidence – but my tarot reading detective and I both see the tarot as a magical source of knowledge and wisdom,” she says. “It’s a tool for pointing heads towards a fresh and more helpful way of thinking – in which case, yes yes yes, the tarot can be used to help solve crime. And pretty much every other question too.” She lays another card out, pauses, and then says brightly, “After this, I’m going to ask the cards which estate agent to use to sell our house.”

Looking at the spread, filled with things I don’t recognise, I’m amazed that anyone can glean any information from them let alone whether to go with Dexters or Haart.

“It’s not looking dramatically dark – or dramatically anything,” she says. “How interesting.”