After nearly 100 years of work to ground psychology in evidence and empirical studies, we might see such idiosyncratic influences as outside the scientific scope. But all through human history, spirituality has factored into concepts of mental health and wellbeing – not necessarily reductively.

Over the course of the same reading, the witch claims that tarot cards have pointed towards a range of bombshells from Archie's birth to Meghan's past relationships will be dropped next year. One upshot of the 21st-century embrace of “wellness” is mounting awareness and acceptance of the real benefits of non-clinical practices such as meditation, yoga, spending time in nature, journalling and mind-altering drugs. Dore, too, writes of the chariot card and the limits to willpower: “Capitalism isn’t built to teach pathfinding; it’s built to teach compliance within a preset path.” But she suggests that tarot could reveal another way – as stories and symbols have always done, separate from any question of whether they are rooted in fact. Tarot simply asks that we hold ourselves open to it, says Dore. “The beautiful thing about tarot is that you will meet the card where you’re ready to go.”I would challenge you to consider that this set of images – that are derived straight from mythology and folktales and fairytales in many cases, and even religion and spirituality – might also have meaning too, if you can step out of the rigid mindset.” Jessica Dore: ‘The cards made me feel seen and understood in a way that I wasn’t used to.’ Photograph: Caroline Gutman/The Guardian Now Dore has expanded on her cerebral writing on “the human experience through tarot” in a book, Tarot For Change: Using the Cards for Self-Care, Acceptance and Growth. With this practical, carefully referenced guide, Dore brings together the scientific and the arcane, two spheres long believed to be antithetical – but increasingly less so. Jessica Dore holds tarot cards at her home in Pennsylvania. ‘You’re not predicting the future – you’re really just exploring.’ Photograph: Caroline Gutman/The Guardian For more incredible stories from the Daily Star, make sure you sign up to one of our newsletters here

On TikTok, tarot cards are drawn by algorithms. Even the Sun newspaper recently published its own guide to major and minor arcana, a surefire sign of steady online search traffic for spiritual guidance. The goal is not to throw out facts, truth or science, says Dore – but to make room for magic, long “relegated to the edges”. Her preferred definition is from the anonymous Christian author of the Meditations on the Tarot: using the subtle to influence the dense.As a set of images and ideas derived from ancient wisdom, tarot has similar potential for transformation and growth, says Dore. She refers to the American psychologist James Hillman’s definition of “psychologizing: whenever reflection takes place in terms other than those presented”. Tarot is among a range of mystic practices to have seen a mainstream resurgence in recent years. Most obvious is astrology, now almost adjacent to psychoanalysis in our shared lexicon – but there’s also psychics, reincarnation, supportive spiritual energies (such as with manifesting), and even witchcraft. For those people who don’t feel spoken to by some of the interventions that are evidenced-based, tarot makes a doorway for people to show up and say: ‘Here’s what I need’, instead of telling them: ‘Here’s what you need’,” she says. Various pieces of artwork and old glass bottles at Jessica Dore’s home. Photograph: Caroline Gutman/The Guardian Tarot might be seen in kind, says Dore – as an intervention rooted in a mystic tradition, like mindfulness. It is possible to accept “other ways of knowing”, she suggests, without denying or undermining science.