Death. The Devil. The King of Pentacles.
The images on tarot cards can seem menacing, even evil. But a modern tarot reading doesn't feel like a journey into the heart of the dark arts. In fact, tarot cards - along with many pursuits under the "metaphysical" label - have moved toward the mainstream.

How mainstream? Aleta Sira Ras does not make her psychic predictions in the back of a shady store or down a dark alleyway on the wrong side of the tracks. Nope, this tarot card reader plies her trade in the tidy suburban neighborhood of Old Farm, in northeast Colorado Springs. Her splitlevel has two dogs in the back yard, but no gauzy curtains or glowing crystal balls.

Sira Ras contends the activity is as innocuous as the setting. "It really does have to do with the intent," she says. "You can use any tool for bad or good."

THE BUSINESS OF LIFE

Since making their way to the United States in the early 1900s, tarot cards have evolved from a curiosity to a steady business. "They're huge, actually," says Alegra Ulibarri-Mills, an employee of Celebration New Age Store at 2209 W. Colorado Ave. "We have a whole wall of different kinds of them."

Hundreds of tarot decks are on the market - from century-old artwork to "The Lord of the Rings" characters - most costing about $20. "We're selling decks on a daily basis," Uli- barri-Mills says. "From what I gather, the interest in metaphysics and tarot has grown immensely. It's going mainstream."

Whispering Winds Metaphysical Shop at 955 Manitou Ave. boasts 99 different tarot deck designs. Only books outsell the tarot cards, says employee Marty Martinez, and he often sells three decks or more a day. Store owner Ruth Perez performs readings in the store. The cost for a reading often is more than $1.50 per minute, but people are willing to pay.

Darlene Pasko received her first tarot reading from Sira Ras in November of 1997, and she returns every six months for a checkup. "It was a monumental event in my life. The reading was really good," Pasko says. "She told me I was going to have some difficult issues coming, and the very next month they started." Pasko says the readings gave her hope for the future as she headed through hard times.

But the concentration on her life's direction also helped her in practical ways. She cleared out negative forces in her life, became more open spiritually and changed professions. A former loan processor at a bank, Pasko went back to school to become a massage therapist.

"It's been very healing for me, and now I can help other people," Pasko says. "It changes the way you view life and the way you live it. "A lot of times it is verification of things you already know, and that's nice to have."

At least a dozen tarot readers work professionally in this area, each with their own stable of clients. Judging by the sales of tarot decks at metaphysical stores, thousands of people also perform their own readings.

Terrorism, war and tsunamis are the types of unpredictable events that drive people toward metaphysical pursuits, practitioners say.

"My business has increased," Sira Ras says. "As more and more people become spiritually aware, they really want to know what's going on and why they're here. In the blink of an eye, you can be gone."

Sira Ras has been reading cards professionally for 20 years. Raised Mormon in Salt Lake City, she is sensitive to people's religious concerns about the tarot, but says she's experienced intuitive powers since she was a girl.

Like most readers, Sira Ras says there is no magic in the cards themselves. Some people simply read tarot cards as a mode of self-reflection. Professional readers usually claim psychic powers, with or without the cards.

"They are a tool," she says. "They can trigger what you see, turn a reading into a story and give people something to look at and focus on." People use her readings for different purposes. Many come to seek advice on relationships. Most of her regulars come once or twice a year to help guide them through life's decisions. One client comes once a week, to seek her insight on business decisions and personalities he's dealing with as he launches a corporate venture.

"A lot of people come to find out what's going on in their lives," Sira Ras says. "A lot of times they know what's going on - they just want a confirmation."

GLIMPSE OF THE PAST

The history of tarot cards is hazy, but the 78-card tarot deck seems to have originated in northern Italy about 1440, according to Tarothermit.com, a site devoted to tarot history. They were used to play the Game of Triumphs, a popular card game similar to bridge.

Even the site about tarot history admits much ambiguity. "What was on the mind of the original designer? Did the symbolic pictures have a deeper meaning and purpose, or were they merely game pieces? The question is surprisingly difficult to answer."

Tarot cards were denounced by the Catholic Church as tools of the devil as early as 1450, but no occult writers discussed using tarot cards until Antoine Court de Gébelin and the Comte de Mellet in 1781. At that point, tarot cards and divination became intertwined. The images on the cards began taking on symbolic meaning, and writers attempted to make links to the wisdom of ancient Egypt, to the Kabbalah (Hebrew mysticism), and to Gypsies.

The Rider-Waite tarot deck, created in 1909, became the first tarot cards readily available in the United States, and rode a wave of popularity during the 1960s when the tarot and other metaphysical pursuits boomed. Since then, tarot cards have migrated from hippie communes to suburban neighborhoods. And there, Aleta Sira Ras turns over the cards and attempts to peer into the future. Sometimes she sees good things, and sometimes she must bear troubling news.

"You look at people sometimes and hope they change it," she says, sighing. "We all have free will. All I can see is where they're going on their current path at the current moment."