When I am doing readings, I feel a buzz, a tingling. I pull the cards with certainty

love? Will I be financially successful? But it can also become an obsession. Banicki has Hollywood clients who consult her to decide which party to go.

As a psychotherapist, I find it fascinating how tarot links to Jungian archetypes. I offer readings to clients and find cards can help trigger conversations. The archetypes – the Hanged Man as life in limbo, the alchemic qualities of the Magician and, of course, number 13 the Death card – can also help people open up about areas that are hard to reflect on.

I have known my sessions with clients to shift profoundly through the use of the cards. For one woman who was lonely and longing for love, the cards identified a mixed-race man who was going to come into her life. ‘Why are you trying to give me hope when no hope exists?’ she said to me at the time. A month later she joyously told me a person from her childhood had contacted her and they had begun a romantic journey. ‘I couldn’t believe it,’ she said. ‘He’s mixed-race – and I haven’t heard from him for years.’ When this person contacted her, she remembered what the cards said. ‘That’s why I agreed to meet him in the first place,’ she said.

Of course sceptics will say that tarot readers are preying on those looking for messages anywhere but within their own selves. This may be true. And you could suggest that any intelligent person can read body language and take it from there. But my view is that there is more to it. And I’m not ashamed to say I believe in the cards’ mystic quality. Banicki explains it in terms of ‘spirit’. She believes it’s not her choosing the cards but some form of higher power. For me, the tarot is an incredibly helpful way to understand the world and put things into perspective. And from the banker who didn’t know whether to walk away from an investment, to the artist who was desperate to sell out a show, in my experience, the cards have turned out to be uncannily true. Make of that what you will. Find out more at lucylovecoach.co.uk or lucycavendishcounselling.com