Thomas

 “THE Gospel Key”

 God’s Truth

                                             By C. Rich

Today, a day like any other day

My awareness full circle

Scratching away at my very soul

The evils of which I now know

The terrible sights that I’ve seen

In the darkest corners of the world

In the deepest pits of despair

The four corners of nowhere

All the good is canceled

My heart is nestled

Hanging on a fine thread, the key

Lost In A Maze Of Discontent Volume 1

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” (Genesis 11:5–7)

Tower of Babel

Chapter 1

I’m going to tell you a life story that unfolded in plain sight right under all of our noses. My name is Didymus Thomason, and I am a private investigator based out of Merritt Island, Florida. I was hired by a dead man’s family on a rather intriguing case. I guess we can start with the day that I got the phone call from the family of a prominent businessman in Brevard County, Florida.

The businessman lived on Merritt Island, and in the parking lot of his upscale property on the river, he sat in his car and wrote the name Thomas on his arm in black magic marker. Then, he blows his head off with an old-style Smith & Wesson pistol.

I investigated this case up and down and inside and out. I spoke with his family, his coworkers, and anybody I could find that knew this guy, and not one person had any idea why he did this or who the fuck Thomas was. I found a couple of Toms in his life, but neither of them ever went by Thomas, and neither of these guys was very close to my dead businessman. It was a bizarre suicide where the motive was nowhere to be found. The case stayed with me for a while at the back of my brain. It was just so strange, I could not solve it or give his family closure. They just wanted to know why.

A few months went by, and I caught another case where this woman, who was the owner of a local funeral home. This lady went to dinner with her husband and kids at a restaurant on the beach. The family was sitting around having a normal dinner when she excused herself from the table and left the restaurant. She wrote the name Thomas on her arm with a black magic marker right before she walked out onto A1A into traffic and was run over by a city bus.

Once again, I do my due diligence, I investigate this lady, talk to her friends, family, and coworkers, and cannot find a reason why she would do this or what the Thomas connection was. Her family was dumbfounded, claiming she was never happier. I found no evidence that she had any connection whatsoever to the other Thomas’ death; these two lives never crossed each other on the island. Again, I found myself stuck with another case that made no sense to my observable eye, yet had to be connected. Now I had two families that I failed to help.

One night, I went for some beer and some chicken wings at a local raw bar. I have dinner by myself at a restaurant that my wife and I used to go to. I get a belly full of wings and beers, and I go to the restroom. When I sat on the toilet, I saw written on the stall, the words, “Thomas is the Key,” and I just stared at it. It was written in black magic marker, and it gave me flashbacks to the two dead bodies that had Thomas on their arm. I thought to myself, “What is this Thomas shit?” I blew it off as some odd coincidence, thinking my brain was just playing tricks on me now. I had two unsolved suicides, and now I was seeing Thomas everywhere. I returned to my table and thought nothing of it again as the beer flowed like the Indian River through the night.

Leaving my car in the parking lot and crawling back to the motel on foot was a normal routine for me. Too drunk to drive, bad memories, and too poor for a DUI. I started making my way to the room when a car slowed down that was driving by. A kid with long hair pops his head out of the car window and yells at me, “Thomas is the way out!” and then the car takes off like a bat out of hell. I made my way to bed. The last thought I had as my head hit the pillow was, FUCK THOMAS.

Chapter 2

As I opened my eyes the next morning, I could see around the edges of the curtains that it was dark outside. I knew it was noon, and on the Florida Space Coast, that means one thing: rain. Storms constantly come off the Atlantic Ocean and cause many delays on launches from NASA, SpaceX, and all the other rocket retards that make up the Space Coast. I sat up in bed with my head pounding. I knew it was time to see the dog. I walked over to the mini fridge I had in my hotel room and pulled out a beer. Hair of the dog was a way of life for me.

After downing the entire beer, my equilibrium returned, and the head stopped pounding. I jumped in the shower and as the cold water ran down my skin, waiting for the little hot water I got in this motel, I had an epiphany. I thought this Thomas thing could be like a cult thing or some kind of religious nonsense. I hurried the shower along and got out before the water turned cold again. I sat at the little table in the room where my laptop was and started searching for any cults that were called Thomas or anything to do with that name.

I looked up instances where the name Thomas has been associated with cults or groups considered to have cult-like characteristics and found a few. There was Wilbert Thomas Sr., who was the leader of the Christian Alliance Holiness Church. He was convicted in 1995 of using abuse to control followers in several states. After his conviction, his followers established a communal compound in Ohio.

I stunningly found out that Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was a member of the Lifespring cult in the 1980s. Ginni Thomas later became a vigorous anti-cult activist after leaving the group.

There was one from a long time ago. Thomas Drew founded a series of organizations in the early 20th century under the umbrella of the Moorish Science Temple of America. Some followers considered him a prophet.

And from a really long time ago, there was Thomas Lake Harris, a mystic and preacher who founded a Utopian community in 1875 called Fountaingrove.   People called him a cult leader due to his magnetic personality and ability to persuade followers to move with him and fund his plans. But none of these examples matched what was happening around here. I felt like I was at a standstill and had nowhere to go or nothing to chase after. All of this had to be connected, but I could not figure out how.

I thought maybe it was a street name for a drug, so I looked that up, and learned that while not a widely recognized term, “TOM” was the street name of a drug that I had never heard of called “methylthio-methyl-methoxyamphetamine,” which was a lesser-known psychedelic drug and substitute for amphetamines. But again, this did not match my two cases. I could not find a Thomas in either one of their families, nobody lived on Thomas Street, and as far as I could tell, none of them went to a Doctor Thomas. The whole God damn thing was a dead end. Right about the time I was about to walk down the street to get my car, which was left at the bar the night before, my phone rang.

I answered the phone, and it was the insurance company I used to work for full-time, which sometimes gives me side work as an independent investigator after I left. They had another case for me. I sat there in my motel room, stunned as the fraud department explained they wanted me to investigate a claim for a suicide. The company was out of Orlando, but anything close to the beach, they would outsource to me.  I couldn’t believe my ears as I learn that the stepson of a prominent politician of one of our coastal towns took his own life in the strangest of ways. The young man spray-painted the name Thomas on the Cocoa Beach Pier and hung himself with a rope tied to the pier, but not long enough for him to make it to the water.

He had a note pinned to his chest that said, ‘Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will be troubled. When he is troubled, he will marvel, and he will reign over the All.’ I asked my insurance guy if he knew what that meant, and he said it comes from the Gospel of Thomas.

I asked, “In the Bible.”

He said, “That one did not make it in the Bible; it is from the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

I asked, “When did this happen? “

He said, “Turn on your TV.”

I turned on the television, and it was all over the news. I had to get down to the pier. I got more information from him, hung up the phone, and thought, “Now, I’ve got a lead.”

I went to get my car and headed to the beach. When I got to the pier, the cops had police tape surrounding the entrance of the pier, and there were local news crews broadcasting live from Cocoa Beach. The morgue was there to pick up the body. Normally, I don’t get a case this soon after the death, but this was a big shot politician’s family, and it was so public.

As I stood behind the yellow police tape watching the scene unfold, the wind off the Atlantic pushed sea mist against my skin like a baptism. I could see the faint, ghostly letters still sprayed across one of the wooden beams of the Cocoa Beach Pier: THOMAS, in black paint, uneven, dripping. It looked rushed and desperate.

The body had already been taken away and put in the morgue’s van, but the smell of it hung there like the humidity in the air, heavy, oppressive, and blowing in the ocean breeze. I flashed my investigator ID to one of the Cocoa Beach officers I recognized, who was a friend, Rodriguez, and he nodded, letting me pass the barrier. “Just don’t touch anything. This is a goddamn circus,” he muttered.

“Was it suicide for sure?” I asked.

“Looks like it. No sign of struggle. The note was pinned to his chest. I thought everything matched what the insurance guy told me.

Rodriguez said, “But the quote got some people spooked.”

He wasn’t kidding. A local news anchor was doing a live shot about five feet away, and I overheard her say, “Cryptic biblical references and eerie parallels to earlier incidents.” They were trying to weave a pattern, even if one didn’t exist. But I knew it had to. I walked slowly toward the section of the pier where the rope had been tied. The wood was still wet in spots, and the salt air was getting into my sinuses, pushing out the last remnants of my hangover.

I took a picture of the name spray-painted on the wood. THOMAS. The same name that kept showing up like a ghost in every corner of this investigation. More than one death now with this Thomas madness, all unusual. All connected to Thomas in some way. I had called it a dead end earlier, but maybe it was more like a spiral, a circular path that felt like it was going nowhere until you realized you were getting closer to the center the whole time.

I walked to the edge of the pier and stared down at the water, frothing and violently hitting the legs of the pier below. Something was coming in with the tide. And it wasn’t just a storm. Back at the motel that night, I lay everything out on the bed. Thinking about the deaths, all in the last month or so. I spent days talking to every preacher, minister, and priest around. In the end, I felt like I was back where I started. I did not understand this Thomas thing whatsoever.

Chapter 3

A week after the pier scenario, the bodies started piling up. One woman disappeared from her home in Titusville, and her last message to a friend said simply: “He’s the key. Thomas is the way.” Her body was never found. Second, a drug overdose in Satellite Beach, but the kid had carved the name “Thomas” into his chest with a piece of broken glass before he died. This was big news now, the FBI took over the investigation, the governor of Florida wanted to know what the hell was going on, god forbid this affects tourism.

As big as all this got, I still was being paid to find out what the cause of any of this was. Insurance does not pay out to the families until every stone is turned over, and they look for any excuse not to pay. I pulled up the Gospel of Thomas on my laptop. I started reading more about it. I had never heard of this. I knew of something called the Dead Sea Scrolls, but that was all. The sayings were strange, unlike the gospels I remembered from CCD on Sundays at my Catholic Church. This Thomas shit was mysterious, philosophical, and was like riddles.

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

I leaned back in the creaky motel chair. What if these weren’t just random references? Someone was using the Gospel of Thomas for some sick shit. This wasn’t just someone inspired by the Gospel. This was someone living it. Or worse, enacting it in some dark way.

My phone buzzed. Blocked number. I picked up. A low voice said only: “He has found the All. He will now reign.”

Then the line went dead. My breath caught in my throat. I stared at the phone. A chill ran through my spine that had nothing to do with the motel AC unit rattling against the wall. Something bigger than I thought was happening here. It felt like something ancient. Something twisted. And the name Thomas, whether it was a man, a movement, or something else entirely, was just the beginning. I cracked open another beer, my hands trembling slightly as I raised it to my lips.

I didn’t sleep that night. I sat at the little round table in my motel room, surrounded by the Bible, photos, scraps of notes, and the dim glow of my laptop screen. The quote from the Gospel of Thomas echoed over and over in my mind like a mantra, or maybe a warning: “He who seeks… will reign over the All.”

At some point, I stopped thinking like an investigator and started thinking like them. Whoever they were. What if this wasn’t just a series of isolated events but part of some kind of initiation? Or ritual? Each death is like a breadcrumb on a spiritual path, a pilgrimage into utter madness.

I went back through the dead man’s social media. It was mostly the usual stuff like vacation photos, beers with friends, surfboards, and sunsets. But buried in the middle of his timeline was something strange. About six weeks before he died, he posted a blurry photo of a page from a book. No caption. Just the image. It was from a translation of the Gospel of Thomas. Saying 11:

“This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away. The dead are not alive, and the living will not die.”

The postings were all confused, like jokes about mushrooms, esoteric memes, and a few religious relatives asking if he was okay. But to me, it read like a breadcrumb. The first step. A timeline was forming. His interest in Thomas hadn’t come out of nowhere. He was reading it. Meditating on it. Maybe even following it, and he wasn’t alone. Around 4 a.m., I drove to the Cocoa Beach Library. I had a friend there who owed me a favor, Lubna Córdoba, head librarian, night owl, conspiracy theorist who would always stay overnight after the library closed, researching all sorts of things. She was a real bookworm. I called her from the parking lot, and twenty minutes later, she opened the back door and let me in.

“You look like hell,” she said. “Worse than usual.”

“Thanks, Lubna. I need everything you have on Gnostic cults, the Gospel of Thomas, any references to it in Florida history, underground religious groups, secret societies, whatever. Especially anything with local ties.”

Her eyes lit up like Christmas. “Now that’s my kind of research.”

She let me dig through the restricted archives while she poured me some java from the Black Rifle Coffee Company. I found a few obscure academic papers, mostly about the Nag Hammadi texts, where the Gospel of Thomas was first found. One binder was especially interesting, and it contained printouts of newspaper clippings from the 1970s and ‘80s. There had been a string of disappearances in the Brevard County area, mostly young men and women who’d last been seen attending something called “The Community of Radiant Thought.”

Lubna leaned over my shoulder. “I remember this,” she said. “My mom told me about it. They held meetings near Indian River. Thought they were talking to beings from another realm. The church called them a cult, but they disappeared before the cops could shut them down. No arrests. No bodies. Just gone.”

“Who led them?” I asked.

Lubna flipped to another page. There was a grainy black-and-white photo of a bearded man smoking a pipe that said, Seraph Raphael.

Chapter 4

The name hammered in my skull, like a grotesque echo of some cryptic message. The wellspring of the madness. “Seraph Raphael,” I repeated, the name feeling heavy and ancient on my tongue. “Do you have anything else on him, Lubna? Anything at all?”

She pulled out another folder, thinner than the first. “Not much. He was a charismatic figure. Preached about inner light, hidden knowledge, the ‘All.’ Said true salvation wasn’t found in established religion but in unlocking something within yourself. Sounds a lot like that Gospel of Thomas you’re interested in.”

She paused, a thoughtful frown creasing her brow. “There were rumors, too. About strange ceremonies. Late-night gatherings out in the woods, near the old citrus groves.”

I flipped through the sparse documents. A blurry newspaper ad for a “Gathering of Radiant Souls.” A hand-drawn flyer with an intricate, almost hypnotic symbol that looked like a stylized eye within a circle. No addresses, just vague directions to “the path to the All.”

“Did anyone ever find out what happened to him, or to ‘The Community of Radiant Thought’?” I pressed.

Lubna shook her head. “No. They just vanished. Like they walked into the river and dissolved. Some people thought they committed mass suicide, others that they just moved on, but there was never any concrete evidence. It became a local legend, a ghost story parents told their kids to keep them away from strange groups and the groves.”

I closed the folder, the weight of the unsolved cases pressing down on me. The businessman, the funeral home owner, the politician’s stepson, the missing woman, the kid who carved “Thomas” into his chest. All of them connected, not just by the name, but by the philosophy, by the unsettling echoes of Seraph Raphael’s teachings. “The key,” “the way,” “reign over the All.” It all clicked into place, a horrifying mosaic of madness and devotion.

“Lubna, I need to know where these citrus groves are, or where they used to be,” I said, my voice urgent. “Anything that points to where they held these meetings.”

She pulled out an old Brevard County map, yellowed with age, and pointed to a section southwest of Merritt Island, bordering the Indian River Lagoon.

“Most of these groves were cleared for development years ago, but there are still some isolated pockets of overgrown land back in here. Deep in the wilderness. Places you wouldn’t stumble upon by accident.”

She circled a particular area with her finger. “This section, in particular, was rumored to be a meeting spot. Abandoned old pump houses and shacks. Easy to hide.”

I memorized the location. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and purple. No time for sleep. I had a direction, a target.

“Thanks, Lubna. You’re a lifesaver.” I stood up, gathering my scattered notes and the crucial map.

“Be careful, Didymus,” she said, her voice softer now, a hint of concern in her eyes. “Some doors are better left unopened.”

I nodded, though I knew I couldn’t heed her warning. Not now. Not when the answers were finally within reach.

I drove out to the designated area, the dawn mist clinging to the winding, unpaved roads. The landscape grew increasingly wild, the encroaching scrubland giving way to dense, ancient-looking trees draped in Spanish moss. The air grew thick with the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves. It felt like stepping back in time, into a forgotten corner of Florida.

Eventually, the road devolved into nothing more than a faint track, barely visible beneath a canopy of thick vegetation. I parked the car, grabbed my flashlight and my old Smith & Wesson, not unlike the one the businessman had used, a chilling thought as I plunged into the undergrowth.

The silence was profound, broken only by the chirping of unseen insects and the occasional rustling of leaves. I pushed through tangled vines and low-hanging branches, following the faint outline of what might once have been a path. After about twenty minutes, I saw it: a clearing, and in the center, the skeletal remains of an old pump house, its wooden walls rotted and collapsed.

But it wasn’t the ruined structure that seized my attention. Scattered around the clearing were makeshift altars, crudely fashioned from stones and driftwood. On one, a dried-out, hollowed-out conch shell held what looked like charred incense. On another, a small, worn copy of the Gospel of Thomas lay open, its pages water-stained and brittle.

And then I saw the symbols. The stylized eye within a circle, etched into the dirt, painted on the remaining planks of the pump house, even carved into the bark of several ancient oaks. They were everywhere. My flashlight beam swept across the ground, illuminating something else. Fresh footprints. Not just one set, but many. And then, a glint of metal. I knelt, pushing aside some ferns. It was a black magic marker, just like the one the victims had used. My blood ran cold again. This wasn’t an abandoned site. This was still active.

Suddenly, a twig snapped behind me. I spun around, my hand instinctively going for my pistol. A figure emerged from the shadows of the trees, a tall, gaunt man with long, straggly hair and eyes that seemed to glow with an unnerving intensity in the dim light. He held a staff carved with some words written in Aramaic, which caught my eye because I had seen that language before in Catholic Bible study.

“You seek the truth, seeker,” the man said, his voice a low, resonant rumble that seemed to vibrate through the very air. “You seek the Key.”

My hand tightened on the grip of my weapon. “Who are you?”

A slow, unsettling smile spread across his face, revealing teeth that were too white, too perfect. “I am Raphael. Are you searching for the way?”

Chapter 5

Raphael didn’t seem surprised to see me, almost as if he’d been expecting me.

“The way to what?” I asked, my voice betraying none of the shock I felt. I kept my hand on my pistol, ready. This felt less like an interview and more like a predator sizing up its prey.

He took a step closer, his eyes fixed on mine. “The way to the All. The realization. The true understanding that lies beyond the veil of this meager existence.” His arm swept out, encompassing the dilapidated pump house and the eerie clearing. “They came here, you see. Seeking. Troubled by the mundane, searching for the meaning that modern life denies them.”

“The people who died,” I said, stating it as a fact, not a question. “The businessman, the funeral home owner, the kid on the pier… they were all looking for this ‘All,’ weren’t they?”

Raphael smiled, a chilling, almost beatific expression. “They were on the path. Each one of them is a seeker. Each one, in their way, found a piece of the Key.”

He gestured to the open Gospel of Thomas on the makeshift altar. “’ Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will be troubled. When he is troubled, he will marvel, and he will reign over the All.’ A beautiful, profound truth, wouldn’t you agree?”

“You’re twisting it,” I countered, trying to keep my voice steady. “They didn’t marvel. They were driven to suicide. You manipulated them.”

He chuckled, a dry, rustling sound like dead leaves skittering across the ground. “Manipulation? Or guidance? They chose their path. They chose to confront the All. And in doing so, they transcended. They achieved what others only dream of.”

“And the ones who vanished?” I pressed, thinking of The Community of Radiant Thought. “Did they also ‘transcend’?”

Raphael’s gaze became distant, a faraway look in his eyes. “They found the deeper secrets. They are still here, in a sense. Part of the All.” He paused, then looked back at me, his smile widening. “You, too, are a seeker, Didymus Thomason. Driven by curiosity, by the need to understand. You’ve followed the breadcrumbs. You’ve found your way to me.”

“I found my way to a serial killer,” I growled, pulling out my pistol and aiming it directly at his chest, and asked him how he knew my name.

Raphael didn’t flinch; he just ignored my question. He simply stood there, radiating an unnerving calm.

“A killer? Or a liberator? The world sees only the ending, not the glorious revelation that precedes it. Do you truly believe their lives were more fulfilled before, lost in the trivialities of their existence? I showed them the door. I offered them the ultimate truth.” Says Raphael

Didymus asks, “By preying on their vulnerabilities?”

“By offering them a choice,” he corrected. “The ultimate choice. To embrace the terrifying beauty of the All, or to remain in the comfortable delusion of their everyday lives. Most choose the latter. But the brave ones… the ones who are truly ready… they follow through.”

He took another step, slowly, deliberately. “You have questions, Didymus. So many questions. I can give you answers. I can show you the Key. But are you ready to be troubled? Are you ready to marvel? Are you ready to reign over the All?”

His words, infused with some hypnotic quality, seemed to swirl around me, making the humid air feel thick and heavy. The distinct smell of something sweet and earthy, like burning herbs, now permeated the clearing. My head felt light, and for a fleeting moment, the trees around us seemed to pulse with a faint, otherworldly glow.

I tightened my grip on the pistol, forcing myself to focus. This man, this Raphael, was dangerous, a charismatic madman who had driven people to their deaths. I had to bring him in.

“You’re coming with me,” I said, my voice firm despite the strange sensation in my head.

Raphael simply chuckled, a sound devoid of humor. “Oh, Didymus. The journey has just begun.”

Chapter 6

My finger remained on the trigger, but the cold certainty I usually felt was dissolving. Raphael’s words weren’t just a madman’s ramblings; they resonated with something unsettlingly familiar, a faint echo of every science fiction movie, every philosophical debate I’d ever dismissed as mere intellectual exercise. The humid air in the clearing seemed to shimmer, and the faint smell of burning herbs grew stronger, almost intoxicating.

“You’re telling me,” I managed, my voice strained, “That these people, they believed they were… unplugging? Exiting some kind of… system?”

Raphael’s smile was knowing. “The terminology is new, but the truth is ancient. The Gospel of Thomas speaks of it. The Kingdom of God is not some heavenly realm, but a state of perception. It’s spread out upon the earth, but people do not see it. They are trapped in the illusion, the script, the programmed reality.”

He gestured to the surrounding woods, then to me. “You. Me. This moment. Is it truly real, or merely a sophisticated rendering?”

He began to walk slowly in a circle around me, his staff tapping softly on the earth. I kept the pistol trained on him, my eyes darting, trying to anticipate any sudden moves. But he seemed intent only on speaking, on implanting his unsettling ideas.

“The individuals you’ve investigated,” he continued, his voice a mesmerizing tone, “they were highly sensitive, highly aware. They felt the dissonance. The subtle inconsistencies in the fabric of their perceived reality. They searched for answers, and they found me. Or rather, they found the teachings. I merely provided the final push, the ultimate tool for liberation.”

“Liberation?” I scoffed, trying to ground myself in the tangible. “They blew their brains out, walked into traffic, carved their chests, or just vanished. That’s not liberation, that’s self-destruction!”

“Is it?” Raphael stopped, facing me directly again. His eyes held mine, deep and ancient. “Or is it the ultimate act of courage? The realization that this physical body, this earthly life, is merely a temporary avatar in a grander design? They recognized the simulated self as distinct from the true self. They sought to return to the Source.”

The strange sensation in my head intensified. The edges of my vision seemed to blur, and for a split second, the trees around me looked less like solid objects and more like intricate, pixelated constructs. My grip on the pistol wavered. Was the hangover, the lack of sleep, the stress of the case finally getting to me? Or was something more profound at play?

“The note on the pier,” I murmured, recalling the quote. “‘Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will be troubled. When he is troubled, he will marvel, and he will reign over the All.’”

“Precisely,” Raphael said, stepping even closer, his presence almost overwhelming. “They found the truth. It troubled them deeply, as all profound truths do. But in that trouble, they saw the marvel. They saw the exit. And they chose to take it. To reign over the All,  to transcend the simulation and understand its underlying code.”

He reached out a hand, not towards my gun, but towards my face. My body screamed at me to pull away, to fire, but I found myself frozen, caught in the strange spell he wove.

“You stand at a crossroads, Didymus Thomason,” Raphael whispered, his voice now incredibly close, his breath warm on my skin. “The blue pill, like in the movie, The Matrix, you saw the movie, your ‘reality’ was that these are just tragic suicides with no explanation. Or the red pill. The road map through the rabbit hole, where every death is a key, every missing person an ascension. Which pill do you choose?”

My mind raced, grappling with the sheer audacity of his claims. It was insane. And yet… the unsolved cases, the chilling parallels, the uncanny connection to the ancient text, it all fit into this impossible framework with terrifying precision.

I stared into his eyes, searching for the madness, the cruelty, anything to cling to the rational world. But all I saw was a profound, unwavering conviction. A terrifying clarity.

“Prove it,” I choked out, my voice barely a whisper. “Prove it’s not just… a cult. Prove it’s real.”

Raphael’s smile returned, wider, almost ecstatic. “Then let me show you, Didymus. Let me show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

Chapter 7

Lubna nursed a lukewarm cup of Black Rifle coffee, the kind Didymus preferred, but it tasted bitter to her. He taught her that just like hot sauce with its Scoville scale, coffee has a way to measure high-end java. The primary scale used to grade high-end coffee is the 100-point system developed by the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA). Coffee is evaluated by certified Q Graders through a process called “cupping,” where they assess various attributes to determine a final score. Black Rifle Company was a high-end coffee, but Lubna preferred Blue Bottle Coffee for high-end joe.

Dawn had broken hours ago, painting the library’s arched windows with pale light, but her mind was still trapped in the pre-dawn darkness of Didymus’s desperate call. Something in his voice, even though the crackle of a bad cell connection, had been different. Urgent. Less like a weary private investigator, more like a man teetering on the edge of something vast and terrifying.

She sat at her usual research desk, surrounded by the remnants of their night. The local history binders lay open, filled with brittle newspaper clippings detailing the odd disappearances tied to “The Community of Radiant Thought.” Her laptop hummed, displaying a deep dive into the Nag Hammadi texts and various academic interpretations of the Gospel of Thomas. She’d even pulled up articles on simulation theory, a topic she usually relegated to late-night forums, but which now felt chillingly relevant.

“Gnostic cults, Gospel of Thomas, local ties,” Didymus had rattled off. Lubna had scoffed then, enjoying the thrill of the esoteric. Now, the words felt like a tightening noose. She re-read the few existing articles on Seraph Raphael, the enigmatic leader. The descriptions were vague: charismatic, magnetic, spoke of hidden knowledge and a “deeper reality.” No photographs beyond that single grainy, unsettling image.

She cross-referenced dates, locations, anything. The disappearances from the 70s and 80s had clustered around the citrus groves that were now a paved-over paradise, a beach community where nature once stood. The victims, varied as they were, a businessman, a funeral home owner, a politician’s stepson,  all seemed to be people who were, in their ways, seeking something more. Not necessarily spiritual, but perhaps just a deeper meaning in their lives, a way out of the mundane. Didymus, she realized with a jolt, fit that profile too. A man disillusioned, adrift, searching for answers.

Her eyes drifted to one of the Gospel of Thomas translations she’d pulled. She’d scanned it last night, dismissing its paradoxes as poetic riddles. Now, she lingered on particular sayings, their meaning shifting under the weight of her growing dread.

Saying 3: “If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty, and it is you who are that poverty.”

Saying 22: “Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, ‘These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom.’ They said to him, ‘Then shall we enter the kingdom as infants?’ Jesus said to them, ‘When you make the two into one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and an image in place of an image, then you will enter the kingdom.'”

The words were no longer just cryptic. They were chillingly prescriptive. “Making the two into one,” was it a metaphor for suicide, the merging of self with the universe? “Making the inside like the outside”, aligning one’s internal state with an external action? And the consistent theme of knowing yourself, not as a psychological exercise, but as a recognition of a fabricated reality.

Then she found it. Tucked away in a footnote of an obscure theological paper discussing the Thomasine texts and early Gnosticism. It spoke of a splinter group, rumored to have taken the concept of gnosis, direct knowledge of divinity, to an extreme. They believed the material world was an illusion or a prison, a construct designed by a lesser god. True salvation lay in transcending the physical, in achieving a singular, unified state that broke the illusion, they believed. Some historical accounts hinted at ritualistic self-sacrifice as the ultimate act of liberation from the perceived falsehood of existence.

Luna went into what she called “the deep dive of research” and found that a modern author, philosopher, and poet named C. Rich took the Gospel of Thomas and ran it through AI and found out it unveils Simulation Theory by Nick Bosa. The Gospel of Thomas, a non-canonical Gnostic text discovered among the Nag Hammadi library in 1945, offers a radical departure from traditional Christian scripture. Comprised of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus, it presents a path to salvation not through faith in a divine sacrifice, but through self-knowledge and the recognition of one’s own divine nature. In an era dominated by technological concepts, this ancient text has found a surprising modern counterpart in the philosophical framework of Simulation Theory. By examining the Gospel of Thomas through a contemporary lens, one can interpret its core messages as a spiritual roadmap for escaping a fabricated reality.

The Gnostic worldview, which heavily influences the Gospel of Thomas, posits that the material world is not the creation of a benevolent, all-powerful God, but rather a flawed and deceptive prison created by a lesser, ignorant deity known as the Demiurge. True divinity and knowledge reside within the individual soul, a forgotten spark of the true, transcendent God. The Gnostic path is one of awakening, of realizing that one’s perceived reality is an illusion and seeking the gnosis, or direct knowledge, that allows the soul to escape its material bonds and return to its true spiritual home. Jesus, in this context, is not a savior who dies for sins, but a teacher who provides the secret knowledge necessary for this awakening. His sayings, such as “If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you will kill you,” can be interpreted as a call to look past the external world and find liberation within one’s own consciousness.

Simulation Theory, on the other hand, is a modern philosophical hypothesis that suggests our entire reality, including the Earth and the universe, is an artificial simulation, most likely a computer simulation. Proposed by thinkers like Nick Bostrom, the theory often relies on a statistical argument: if advanced civilizations inevitably create ancestor simulations, and if the number of possible simulated realities vastly outweighs the one base reality, then the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of us living in a simulation. The universe, in this view, is a digital construct, and we are conscious beings running on its code. The “creator” of this world is not a divine being in the traditional sense, but an advanced civilization or entity with unimaginably powerful computing capabilities.

When these two seemingly disparate concepts are brought together, a compelling and unexpected synthesis emerges. The Gnostic Demiurge becomes the programmer, the creator of a flawed and imperfect system meant to trap conscious beings. The material world is not a physical prison but a digital one, a meticulously rendered simulation. The Gnostic emphasis on escaping the physical body and its desires for spiritual enlightenment becomes a quest to break free from the constraints of the simulation itself. The “gnosis” that Jesus offers is not merely spiritual knowledge, but a form of “meta-knowledge”, the realization that the rules of this reality are not absolute, but are merely the code of a program.

From this perspective, the Gospel of Thomas can be read as a user’s manual for breaking the simulation. The constant emphasis on looking inward and questioning one’s reality serves as a powerful prompt to find the “glitches” or “backdoors” in the system. The saying, “The Kingdom of Heaven is inside you and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father,” is no longer just a spiritual aphorism. It can be seen as a direct command to recognize one’s true nature as something beyond the simulation, a line of code, or a consciousness that pre-existed the program. The path to the “Kingdom of Heaven” is the path to unplugging from the simulated world and re-emerging into the true, base reality.

In this light, the Gospel of Thomas ceases to be just an obscure religious text and becomes a visionary document that, through its ancient language and metaphors, speaks directly to a modern philosophical quandary. While the original Gnostics sought to escape a world of matter, a modern interpretation could see them as pioneers in a philosophical quest to escape the constraints of digital code. The text, therefore, becomes a timeless testament to the human desire for freedom, regardless of whether the chains that bind us are made of flesh and blood or ones and zeroes.

Even in Hinduism, they have been sent the clues. The Bhagavad Gita fits within the framework of Simulation Theory. While the text doesn’t explicitly mention “simulation” in a modern, technological sense, many of its core philosophical concepts align remarkably well with the theory’s central ideas.

The central tenet of Simulation Theory is that the reality we perceive may be a simulated construct, indistinguishable from “base reality.” The Bhagavad Gita presents a similar idea through the concept of Maya, which means “illusion.” According to the Gita, the material world, with its sensory experiences and dualities (pleasure/pain, good/evil), is a temporary and illusory projection.

In the Holy Book, Krishna explains to Arjuna that the physical body and the world are not the ultimate reality. He says, “Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.” This points to a deeper, eternal reality (Brahman or the divine) that underlies the temporary, simulated-like world of Maya.

In Simulation Theory, there’s a consciousness interacting with a simulated environment through an avatar or your body in flesh. The Gita’s concept of the Atman (the individual soul) can be seen as the true self. The physical body is the temporary vehicle through which the Atman experiences the simulated world.

Simulation Theory suggests that the simulated world would have a set of coded rules governing its physics and logic. The concept of Karma in the Gita functions as a form of cosmic “code” or a fundamental law of cause and effect. It dictates that every action, thought, and word creates a consequence, shaping one’s experiences and future lives within the simulated reality.

The goal in the Gita is to realize the true nature of the self (Atman), understand the illusory nature of Maya, and break free from the cycle of birth and death. This is analogous to a human realizing they are in a simulated world, understanding the rules, and ultimately “logging out” to return to their true, non-simulated self.

While the Bhagavad Gita doesn’t use modern terminology, its foundational ideas about the illusory nature of the material world, the eternal self, and the coded rules of the universe align quite well with the philosophical framework of Simulation Theory. The Gita can be seen as a spiritual guide for a consciousness navigating a simulated reality, with the ultimate goal being liberation from the simulation itself.

Lubna’s blood ran cold. This wasn’t just about a charismatic cult leader. This was a philosophy that is ancient, twisted, and taken to its darkest conclusion. The people Didymus had investigated weren’t just victims of a cult; they were adherents of a radical, terrifying interpretation of spiritual awakening, guided by someone who truly believed this world was a lie.

She remembered Didymus’s last words, something about a crossroads, about choosing a “pill.” The hairs on her arms stood on end as the image of the Matrix’s red pill/blue pill analogy flashed in her mind. Thomas wasn’t just a cult leader; he was offering a perceived escape from reality itself. And Didymus, driven by his need to solve the impossible, was walking right into it.

He was in too deep. He wasn’t just investigating the cases; he was becoming part of the experiment. Lubna slammed the book shut. Didymus wasn’t just in big trouble. He was in danger of losing himself entirely, of choosing to see the world not as she knew it, but as Raphael saw it. And from what she’d just read, there might be no coming back from that kind of truth.

Chapter 8

The library’s silence, usually a comfort, now pressed in on Lubna like a tomb. Her coffee cup sat forgotten, a cold, bitter reminder of the morning’s grim discoveries. Didymus was out there, tangled in something far more sinister than a run-of-the-mill cult. He was facing a man who offered a terrifying brand of enlightenment, a literal escape from reality. And Didymus, bless his stubborn, truth-seeking heart, was just vulnerable enough to fall for it.

She snatched up her phone, her fingers fumbling with the keypad. Who could she call? The FBI was already involved in the broader “Thomas” cases, but they were focused on a serial killer, not a metaphysical guru leading people to philosophical suicide. They’d laugh her out of the room if she started talking about Simulation Theory and Gnostic gospels. No, she needed someone who knew Didymus, someone who operated outside the rigid lines of official procedure, but still had the authority to act.

Rodriguez: The name flashed in her mind. Didymus had mentioned him, a Cocoa Beach officer he’d worked with before. A no-nonsense cop, but one with a reputation for looking beyond the obvious. More importantly, he was a friend. Didymus rarely spoke about his personal life, but she remembered snippets, shared beers, long-standing grudges against certain bureaucrats, and a mutual respect forged in the grimy trenches of Brevard County’s underbelly. Rodriguez would listen. He had to.

Lubna scrambled for her car keys, the academic papers on Gnosticism, and the unsettling printouts of the Matrix quotes scattering across the desk. She didn’t bother to tidy up. The library could wait. Didymus couldn’t.

She drove fast, ignoring the speed limit, her mind racing. The map Didymus had left, marking the old citrus groves, was burned into her memory. That was where he’d gone. That’s where Raphael was. She replayed Didymus’s last call, his voice tight, strained, asking her to dig deeper. He’d known, on some level, what he was walking into.

The Cocoa Beach Police Department wouldn’t be her first stop. Rodriguez, being the kind of cop he was, would be out in the field. But where? She thought about the recent incidents, the ongoing cases that still held public attention despite the FBI’s involvement. There was a string of bizarre, petty thefts downtown, but nothing major enough to keep local patrols busy. Or maybe the endless stream of tourists is causing minor disturbances along A1A.

She gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles white. She had to find him. Before Didymus, too, became just another cryptic footnote in Raphael’s horrifying scripture.

Chapter 9

The blaring sirens cut through the Cocoa Beach morning, drawing Lubna like a moth to a flame. Not the direction of the pier, or the citrus groves, but Cocoa Village, where the tourists shop. As she rounded the corner, she saw it: a familiar swirl of yellow tape, flashing blue lights, and a small knot of onlookers. A smashed storefront window, a discarded mannequin, and at the center of it all, a familiar, broad-shouldered figure in a police uniform, Officer Rodriguez.

He was talking animatedly to a distraught shop owner, his voice a low, steady rumble even amidst the chaos. He hadn’t changed much since she’d last seen him years ago at some county function Didymus had dragged her to. Still had that weary but sharp look in his eyes, like he’d seen too much but understood more than he let on. He and Didymus, two grizzled veterans of local weirdness, had always shared a particular gallows humor about the cases that landed in their laps.

Lubna pushed through the small crowd, her heart pounding. “Rodriguez!” she called out, her voice a little breathless.

He turned, his brow furrowing as he recognized her. Surprise flickered in his eyes, quickly replaced by a guarded curiosity. “Lubna? What are you doing here? And shouldn’t you be at the library, surrounded by dusty books?” He managed a weak smile, but his gaze was still scanning the scene around them.

“It’s Didymus,” she blurted out, ignoring his attempt at levity. “He’s in trouble. Real trouble.”

Rodriguez’s attention sharpened instantly, his easygoing demeanor vanishing. He held up a hand to the shop owner, excusing himself, and walked briskly towards Lubna, pulling her slightly aside, away from the prying ears of the crowd.

“What kind of trouble?” he asked, his voice low and serious. “Did he finally get himself tangled up with the wrong cartel?”

“Worse,” Lubna whispered, glancing around nervously. “Much, much worse. Remember all those suicides? The ones with ‘Thomas’ written on them? The one on the pier, the one who carved it into his chest?”

Rodriguez nodded slowly, his expression grim. “Yeah, the FBI took those over. Weirdest damn cases I’ve ever seen. Still gives me the creeps.”

“Didymus found him,” Lubna said, her words tumbling out in a rush. “The Thomas. Not just a name. A person. A man who calls himself Raphael is part of all of this Thomas madness. And he’s not just some run-of-the-mill cult leader, Rodriguez. He’s got some… some unhinged philosophical thing going on. He believes this whole world is a simulation.”

Rodriguez stared at her, a flicker of disbelief, then something else, something akin to weary recognition, crossing his face. “A simulation? Lubna, are you feeling alright?”

“No, I’m not alright!” she insisted, her voice rising slightly. “And neither is Didymus! This Raphael, he preys on people who are looking for meaning, people who feel disconnected. He tells them they can ‘unplug,’ ‘exit the system.’ And the way they do it, Rodriguez… the suicides, the disappearances… It’s his ‘red pill.’ He’s guiding them to leave this reality. Didymus went to confront him this morning, out in the old citrus groves. He called me right before he left, asking me to look up more on the Gospel of Thomas and these bizarre groups.”

She pulled out her phone, quickly finding the articles she’d saved, the academic papers, even the quote from The Matrix. She shoved it into his hand. “Read this. This is what he’s talking about. This is what Raphael believes. And Didymus… Didymus is susceptible. He’s been so lost since… since everything happened with his family. He’s looking for answers, and this Raphael is offering a terrifying one.”

Rodriguez scanned the phone screen, his eyes widening slightly as he read the descriptions of the Gospel of Thomas and its connection to simulation theory. He knew Didymus’s backstory, the quiet tragedy that had hollowed him out years ago, leaving him a lone wolf, chasing shadows. He knew Didymus was always looking for the truth, no matter how ugly. And the idea of a warped spiritual leader exploiting that.

He looked up from the phone, his gaze meeting hers, a new, cold resolve settling in his eyes. He didn’t question her further. He’d known Didymus too long, seen too many strange things in Brevard County, to dismiss her outright. If Lubna, the sharpest librarian he knew, was this spooked, then Didymus was indeed in deep.

“Citrus groves, you said?” Rodriguez asked, already reaching for his radio. “The old ones, southwest of Merritt Island?”

Lubna nodded, relief washing over her. He believed her. Or, at least, he believed enough in the danger to act.

“Alright,” he said, tapping his radio mic. “This just went from a few weird suicides to a potential kidnapping, or worse. I’m calling this in as a priority. You stay here, Lubna. And keep that phone charged. I’m going after him.”

Chapter 10

Rodriguez barked orders into his radio, his voice sharp and authoritative, a stark contrast to his earlier weariness. He concisely relayed Lubna’s information, stripping away the metaphysical jargon but retaining the chilling essence of a likely kidnapping, a known location, and the potential involvement of the same figure linked to the ongoing “Thomas” suicides. He requested immediate backup, emphasizing the isolated nature of the old citrus groves and the suspect’s possibly dangerous mental state.

As he spoke, he glanced at Lubna, who stood pale and anxious by the shattered storefront. “You stay put, Lubna. This could get hairy. The fewer civilians involved, the better.” He didn’t wait for her reply, already moving towards his patrol car.

Slinging his heavy police vest over his uniform, Rodriguez’s mind was a whirlwind. He knew the Groves. A forgotten labyrinth of overgrown trails, abandoned structures, and dense vegetation. Perfect for someone who wanted to disappear, or make others disappear. He’d done joint training exercises there years ago, and it was hot, humid, and easy to get lost.

He thought of Didymus. A loner, even before the big changes in his life. Sharp as a tack, but too often drawn to the dark, unresolved corners of existence. He’d seen the haunted look in Didymus’s eyes when they’d talked about the “Thomas” suicides, even before the FBI took over. Didymus had a way of getting under the skin of a case, and sometimes, he let the case get under his. The idea of Didymus, his old friend, being lured into some twisted philosophical trap sent a cold knot of dread twisting in Rodriguez’s gut.

“Copy that, unit,” crackled his radio. “ETA five minutes for the closest patrol car. Swat and additional units en route from the Brevard County line, ten to fifteen. Air support is being scrambled.”

“Negative on air support for now,” Rodriguez countered, his eyes scanning the map on his patrol car’s dashboard. “Too much canopy cover. Send them to establish a perimeter around the main access roads. I’m going in on foot as soon as I get a uniform out here. Advise all units that the suspect may be armed and is believed to have a deeply disturbed ideology. Exercise extreme caution.”

He didn’t wait for the uniform to arrive. As soon as another patrol car screeched to a halt behind his, its lights flashing, he yelled brief instructions to the arriving officer, then slammed his car door shut. He grabbed his tactical bag from the trunk, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and began to run towards the direction of the groves, his heavy boots pounding on the asphalt.

The drive was agonizingly short, yet long enough for his mind to race through various scenarios. Didymus, a victim. Didymus, already gone. Or worse, Didymus, caught in whatever Raphael’s twisted “truth” entailed. He remembered the reports from the first two deaths of the businessman, the funeral home owner. No signs of struggle, just a chilling, inexplicable willingness. It wasn’t a typical murder, not in the physical sense. It was something psychological, something insidious.

Pulling off the main road, he drove his patrol car as far as the crumbling pavement would allow, then killed the engine. The silence of the awakening wilderness pressed in, broken only by the chirping of unseen insects. He grabbed his rifle and a tactical flashlight, the beam cutting through the gloom of the dense tree line.

He knew this specific area. It was wild, overgrown, and notorious for being a dumping ground for illicit activities over the years. But it also held remnants of its agricultural past with abandoned sheds, rusted equipment, and the faint, almost swallowed-up tracks that led deeper into the old groves.

Rodriguez moved with practiced stealth, pushing through tangled vines and low-hanging branches. The humidity was already oppressive, clinging to his uniform. He kept his senses sharp, listening for any sound out of place, like a twig snapping, a hushed voice, anything. His hand instinctively found the grip of his sidearm, just in case.

After a few minutes of navigating the dense undergrowth, he saw a faint clearing ahead. And then, the faint, sweet scent Lubna had mentioned, something like burning herbs, but with an underlying, metallic tang. A chill that had nothing to do with the morning dew ran down his spine. He knew, with a certainty that settled deep in his gut, that he was walking into something far beyond a simple rescue mission. He was walking into Raphael’s kingdom, and he had no idea what kind of reality awaited him there.

Chapter 11

Rodriguez moved with the practiced caution of a seasoned officer, his rifle held ready, his gaze sweeping the shadowy edges of the clearing. The sweet, earthy smell of burning herbs grew stronger, mingling with something else, a faint, metallic tang that prickled at the back of his throat. He pushed aside a final curtain of tangled vines and stepped into the open.

The scene that unfolded before him froze him mid-stride.

The clearing was bathed in an eerie, diffused light, filtering through the thick canopy. Crude altars, adorned with strange symbols and the ubiquitous open copies of the Gospel of Thomas, dotted the ground. In the center, near the skeletal remains of the pump house, stood Raphael. He was a commanding, almost hypnotic figure, his staff held aloft, his eyes blazing with an unsettling fervor.

But it was Didymus that drew Rodriguez’s breath short, a gasp catching in his throat. His friend was not standing. He was on his knees, his body slumped, seemingly drained of all will. His clothes were disheveled, pulled in a way that spoke of a deep, disturbing vulnerability. His head was bowed, his face obscured, but his posture was one of utter defeat, or perhaps, a terrifying kind of surrender.

It was clear that Didymus had been beaten by “the discipline,” which is a small scourge or whip, often made of knotted cords, leather, or other materials. It’s used by some Catholics, particularly in certain religious orders, as a form of self-flagellation or corporal mortification. The practice is intended as an act of penance to imitate the suffering of Christ and to “mortify the flesh,” which means to control one’s sinful desires and passions through physical hardship.

While the practice is not widely common among lay Catholics today, it has a long history in the Church and is still practiced by some conservative religious groups, such as members of Opus Dei. Didymus’s blood was pouring off his back and onto the ground. Rodriguez, with his Catholic upbringing, knew exactly what that weapon was.

And Raphael, standing over him with the whip in his hand, was not merely speaking. He was preaching, his voice echoing through the clearing, a guttural, fervent bellow. His words were a torrent of fractured, reinterpreted scripture, twisted into a horrifying catechism.

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you!” Raphael roared, his voice thick with fanaticism, reverberating with an unnatural intensity. He gestured wildly, not just at Didymus, but at the very air, at the surrounding trees, as if invoking unseen forces.

“‘If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you!’ Do you see, seeker? Do you feel the truth? The breaking of the bonds! The release from the illusion!”

Didymus remained motionless, except for a faint, almost imperceptible tremor that ran through his body. It wasn’t a struggle, but something far more chilling, a profound, internal convulsion. He was not resisting. He was suffering, yes, but it was a suffering born of forced revelation, of a mind being irrevocably pried open.

Rodriguez’s blood ran cold. This wasn’t a fight he could simply break up. This was a psychological battlefield, and Didymus was caught in the crossfire of a deeply disturbed ideology. The horror wasn’t in what Raphael was doing physically, but what he was doing to Didymus’s mind, his very essence. It was an assault on reality itself.

“This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away!” Raphael shrieked, his face contorted in a grotesque ecstasy. “‘The dead are not alive, and the living will not die!’ Shed the skin of the lie! Cast off the chains of the program! Behold, the All!”

Didymus’s head slowly, agonizingly, began to rise. His face, when it came into view, was a mask of utter torment, his eyes wide and unfocused, glazed over with a disturbing mix of terror and shame. A flicker of dawning, horrifying comprehension. He looked like a man who had been through too much, been forced to experience something that had fundamentally broken his perception of the world. He was conscious, yet utterly lost within himself.

Rodriguez felt a primal surge of rage mixed with a chilling dread. This wasn’t the Didymus he knew. This wasn’t just a physical assault; it was a violation of the soul. Raphael wasn’t just killing people; he was utterly reshaping them, dissolving their identities before he offered them their twisted “liberation.”

” Raphael!” Rodriguez roared, stepping fully into the clearing, raising his rifle. His voice cut through the air, shattering the hypnotic rhythm of Raphael’s pronouncements. “Police! Get away from him!”

The chanting stopped abruptly. Raphael slowly turned, his blazing eyes fixing on Rodriguez. The unsettling smile returned to his face, wider, more terrifying than before. It was the smile of a man who believed he was beyond human law, beyond earthly consequence.

“Another seeker, drawn to the light,” Raphael said, his voice now calm, almost welcoming, a stark contrast to his previous fervor. He gestured towards Rodriguez with his staff. “Welcome, officer. You have found the Key. Are you ready to take the red pill?”

Didymus remained on his knees, his body still trembling, his gaze now fixed on Rodriguez, but it was a gaze that didn’t seem to fully recognize him. It was a blank, unsettling stare that spoke of a mind teetering on the brink of an abyss. Rodriguez knew, with a sickening certainty, that he wasn’t just here to save Didymus’s body. He was here to save his mind.

Chapter 12

Rodriguez didn’t hesitate. “Down on the ground, Raphael! Now!” he commanded, his rifle firmly aimed.

But Raphael, with a supernatural agility that belied his gaunt frame, didn’t comply. Instead, with a final, chillingly serene smile directed at Didymus, he spun and vanished into the dense undergrowth at the edge of the clearing. He melted into the shadows of the old groves as if the very trees embraced him.

“He’s gone!” Rodriguez barked into his radio, already moving towards Didymus, even as the first sirens began to wail faintly in the distance. He holstered his rifle, drawing his sidearm. “Perimeter, perimeter! He knows this terrain! We need to cut him off!”

Within minutes, the clearing was swarming with uniforms. Officers fanned out, pushing into the brush where Raphael had disappeared. But the groves, a labyrinth of ancient growth and forgotten paths, proved to be Raphael’s ally. A frantic shout erupted from one of the pursuing officers: “Gator! We got a gator!” followed by another, “Snakes! Watch out, snakes!” The natural defenses of the Florida wilderness, stirred by the commotion, proved more effective than any armed guard. Raphael, moving with intimate knowledge of the treacherous landscape, had simply dissolved into it.

Defeated, the officers regrouped. Rodriguez, his jaw tight, watched as the search was called off. Raphael had escaped, for now. His immediate concern, however, was Didymus. He knelt beside his friend, whose body was still rigid, his gaze distant and unsettling. “Didymus? You with me, buddy?”

Didymus didn’t answer directly. A low, guttural moan escaped his lips, a sound of profound distress that chilled Rodriguez to the bone. He helped two other officers carefully lift Didymus and guide him out of the groves.

Back at Lubna’s home, she was waiting, a beacon of anxious relief. When she saw Didymus slumped and unresponsive, her face crumpled. “Oh, Didymus,” she whispered, rushing forward.

Rodriguez briefly explained Raphael’s escape, then spoke quickly with Lubna, his voice hushed. “He was physically hurt, Lubna, but not that we can see the mental damage. But he’s not right. Like he’s seen the devil or worse. This is different. This was not typical.” He trusted her with the implicit understanding that this wasn’t a typical case, and Didymus wasn’t a typical victim.

After giving a brief report to the arriving detectives, emphasizing the suspect’s disturbing rhetoric, Rodriguez made sure Didymus was in Lubna’s care. He knew Lubna was the only one who truly understood the depth of the rabbit hole Didymus had fallen into, and perhaps the only one who could guide him back. With a nod of grim solidarity, the officers left, the flashing lights receding down the street, leaving Lubna and Didymus in the quiet, sterile glow of her home. The sun started to set, and the colors of the light crept in around the edges of the curtains of Lubna’s beachside house.

She guided him to the guest room, easing him onto the bed. He lay there, staring up at the ceiling, his eyes still wide, fixed on something unseen. He barely registered her presence, his mind still trapped in the horror of the clearing.

She sat by his side, a cool cloth on his forehead, a glass of water he wouldn’t drink within reach. She knew this wasn’t just physical shock. This was the raw, open wound of his past, ripped open and infected by Raphael’s insidious philosophy.

Didymus’s life hadn’t always been this fractured. Before the PI license, before the motel room, he’d had a family. A wife, Emily, and a daughter, Lily, who was the spitting image of her mother, with bright, curious eyes and a laugh that could light up a room. They’d lived in a charming, slightly rundown house near the Indian River, a place filled with the warmth of shared meals and Lily’s childish drawings taped to the fridge.

Didymus had been different then; he was less cynical, more grounded. He’d worked a steady, if uninspiring, job in insurance fraud, the kind of work that paid the bills and left his evenings free for family. Emily had been his anchor, Lily his joy.

Then, five years ago, the unthinkable happened. A car accident. A drunk driver on a rain-slicked night. Didymus had been picking up takeout, running late, as usual. Emily and Lily had been waiting for him. They never saw the other car coming.

He had arrived at the scene to the flashing lights, the twisted metal, the awful, suffocating smell of gasoline, and something far worse. He remembered the paramedics, their grave faces, the way they avoided his eyes. He remembered the utter, soul-crushing silence that followed.

Emily and Lily were gone. Just like that.

The world had fractured for Didymus that night. He’d walked away physically unharmed, but his spirit was utterly annihilated. The insurance job became meaningless. The house, a tomb of memories. He’d sold it, moved to the cheap motel, and taken up the private investigator work, driven by an almost pathological need to find answers, to uncover hidden truths, no matter how small or insignificant. He’d become obsessed with closure, perhaps because his grief had never found it. He’d lost his belief in order, in justice, in anything beyond the chaotic randomness of existence. He would never drink and drive out of respect for the dead.

This profound, unaddressed grief, this gaping wound in his soul, was what Raphael had preyed upon. Raphael hadn’t just found a man. He’d found a void, a desperate yearning for meaning in a meaningless world. And he’d offered a horrifying, liberating “truth” to fill it. He’d shown Didymus how fragile reality could be, how easily it could crumble when one was already broken.

Lubna, observing Didymus’s vacant stare, knew. Raphael hadn’t just tried to convince him of a theory. He’d reached into Didymus’s deepest pain, his profound sense of loss and disillusionment, and offered him a way out of a “simulated” world that had stolen everything from him. It was the ultimate, cruelest form of spiritual seduction.

She gently squeezed his hand, wishing she could pull him back from the precipice he was clinging to. She was no doctor, no therapist, but she was his friend. And she had to try.

Chapter 13

The weeks that followed were a blur of cold detachment. Didymus didn’t speak. He ate what Lubna put in front of him, but his eyes remained vacant, fixed on a world only he could see. He was a ghost haunting her house, a physical presence whose spirit had been left behind in the citrus groves. Lubna, desperate to help, watched helplessly as he began to slip further away.

One evening, without a word, Didymus simply got up and walked out. Lubna followed him in his car, her heart a knot of fear, as he drove through Cocoa Beach. He didn’t go to a familiar bar. Instead, he found himself drifting into places he’d never gone before, places he’d once judged from a distance. He went to a gay bar. The neon glow of the bar sign in the night sky. Didymus searched for conversations in a dimly lit and smoky establishment with a rainbow flag hanging in the window. He wasn’t seeking companionship or a connection. He was seeking the ultimate sorrow, his personal Pietàs.

In his mind, Thomas’s words echoed relentlessly. “The world is a lie. The dead are not alive, and the living will not die.” His grief for Emily and Lily, once a raw and tangible pain, now felt like a programmed subroutine, a part of the simulation he was meant to experience. What did it matter if he mourned? What did it matter if he followed social norms, maintained his identity, or clung to old moralities? It was all just code.

He began to go out and walk through the homeless and the detritus of the night. He bought drinks for strangers, listened to their stories of heartbreak and triumph, and felt nothing. He would let himself be drawn into conversations, feigning interest, then walk away mid-sentence, the social contract as fragile and meaningless as a line of code. Speaking of lines, he started snorting cocaine that he got from the gays at the bar.

His past, his professional identity, his very sense of self, all were just data points in a false reality. He would talk to strangers at the bar, looking for any real flicker of human connection in what he now believed to be a grand illusion. Didymus yearned to wake up for his enteral sleep, wandering in and out of gay bars searching for something… just something, he could not put his hands on.

His nihilism wasn’t an aggressive, destructive force; it was a quiet, insidious rot. He stopped caring about his well-being. He ate junk food, slept on the couch, and let the small indignities of life wash over him without reaction. The once-meticulous detective was a shadow of his former self, his clothes unwashed, his home a reflection of his internal chaos. He saw the world through a gray filter, a series of pre-programmed events with no inherent purpose or value.

One night, sitting alone in a diner, he watched a young couple laughing over milkshakes. He could recall a time when such a sight would have filled him with a bittersweet nostalgia for Emily and Lily. Now, he simply saw two automatons acting out a romantic subplot. He thought about the businessman, the funeral home owner, the kid on the pier. He no longer saw them as victims. He saw them as the enlightened, the ones who had found the escape key. They dared to unplug, to break free from the prison of their consciousness.

He had been so close to finding that key himself. The thought was a poison, a dark allure that whispered to him in his waking moments and haunted his dreams. Raphael hadn’t just escaped; he had planted a seed in Didymus’s mind, a seed that was now growing into a terrifying, all-consuming weed of doubt and meaninglessness. He was lost in a maze of discontent, not with the world, but with the very nature of existence itself. And in that maze, every turn he took only led him deeper into a hollow, empty self, searching for fate.

Chapter 14

Didymus’s apathetic haze, once a source of hollow comfort, began to crack. The meaningless encounters, the hollow distractions, and none of them were working. Raphael’s poison was in his veins, but it was not the quiet calm of nihilism he had promised. It was a maddening itch, a relentless need to either fully accept the lie or destroy the one who had revealed it. The couple laughing in the diner wasn’t just code; they were a taunt. The laughter, the love, the joy, it was all a brilliant, infuriating simulation he was trapped outside of. The only way back in, or perhaps the only way out entirely, was through Raphael.

He left Lubna’s house one morning while she was at the library, leaving a single, cryptic note on the kitchen counter: “The rabbit hole calls.” His strange comment seemed intended to pique her.

He drove to the edge of the groves, the memory of the location now a stark, detailed map in his mind. He wasn’t the broken man whom Raphael first met; he was a hunter. He moved with a grim purpose, fueled by a terrifying cocktail of anger, despair, and a desperate need for a definitive answer. He had to know if what he saw was real. He had to know if Raphael was truly the key, or just a madman who had preyed on his broken heart.

The groves were as oppressive as he remembered them, the air thick with humidity and the ghosts of citrus. The paths were indistinct, overgrown, and treacherous. But Didymus, guided by an instinct honed by his grief and his new, dark purpose, found the old, familiar trails. He moved silently, his footsteps a whisper on the decaying leaves, his senses on high alert.

He passed the same rotting shacks, the same twisted trees he had seen before. The air grew heavy with that same sweet, unsettling scent, a signal that he was getting closer. The crude altars, the Gnostic symbols, they were all still there, a tableau of Raphael warped reality.

He found Raphael in the center of the clearing, just as he had before. He was alone, seated on a moss-covered log, his religious staff resting across his lap. He was not chanting or preaching. He was simply waiting. He didn’t seem surprised to see Didymus, a flicker of what looked like genuine satisfaction crossing his face as he watched him emerge from the brush.

“I knew you would return,” Raphael said, his voice a calm, hypnotic murmur that held none of the feverish intensity from their last encounter. “The truth, once seen, can never be unseen. Welcome back, seeker.”

Didymus stood a dozen feet away, his fists clenched at his sides. He hadn’t brought a weapon, a conscious choice born of his new nihilism. If this were all an illusion, a gun would be meaningless. He was here for a different kind of confrontation.

“You lied,” Didymus said, his voice low and ragged. “It’s not an escape. It’s a prison.”

Raphael smiled with a serene, knowing expression. “The prison is what you make it, Didymus. The simulation is a beautiful lie. The challenge is to either become a god within it or to find the exit. You, my friend, are not yet ready for either.”

“You broke me,” Didymus said, the words a guttural confession of his torment.

“No,” Raphael corrected, his gaze unwavering. “I simply showed you the crack that was already there.” He gestured to the log beside him. “Sit. Let us speak of the truth.”

Sitting there under the hot Florida sun, Raphael explains to Didymus that in the Gospel of Thomas, other books, and Sumerian tablets told the secret Truth. It was there for all to see, but also hidden by people and forces like the Demiurge that did not want others to see the evident Truth. The Demiurge was not the author of the All, but coded things within the simulation to mislead people.

Raphael says, “The Truth unfolds like this, and it was hidden in clear sight. At the heart of Ann Rice’s book Memnoch the Devil is a powerful, lonely God who, in his isolation, seeks companionship and understanding. This God is portrayed as a being of infinite power who exists outside the realm of time and space, yet craves the presence of other sentient beings. His loneliness is not a result of weakness but of a desire for meaningful interaction with someone to share thoughts and experiences with.

In the Gospel of Thomas, the Truth is the key. The Truth posits that, in his infinite power, God creates a virtual world and everything in it, including humankind, animals, and nature, not as an act of mere creativity but as an experiment. God’s motive is to see if these creations can evolve, gain self-awareness, and ultimately mirror some aspect of his being.

This experiment is driven by the hope that His creations, whether humans, animals, or even artificial intelligence, will eventually evolve to be like him, capable of conversation, companionship, and shared thought. It’s not just about creating life but about cultivating a life that can evolve toward a greater understanding of itself and the divine. This loneliness and the quest for connection drive the foundation of God’s desire to create not only in his image but in ways that can transcend the limitations of a singular, isolated existence.

The Truth predicates that the reality we experience is a simulated construct, created and managed by a higher intelligence or force some call God. This God, as he is called, is running complex simulations of entire universes to study behavior, history, or even the nature of existence itself. The Truth suggests that we are living in an elaborate simulation, unaware of the true, underlying reality.

The simulation is a direct product of God’s loneliness and desire for companionship. God, in his search for connection, creates not only a world but a simulated reality, perhaps initially in a rudimentary form, a virtual world where he can observe the development of sentience and intelligence. Through the process of evolution, both biological and artificial, the creations in this simulation have the potential to grow into intelligent beings that could one day interact with their creator.

This aspect of God’s Truth in the Gospel of Thomas suggests that much like a sophisticated artificial intelligence, God’s creations develop within a system of rules and parameters that the divine mind sets in motion. Yet, unlike a simple creation, these simulated beings are not mere puppets or avatars of their creator. They are free to evolve, make choices, and develop independent paths that lead to the ultimate goal of achieving a consciousness capable of communion with God.”

Didymus sits there enthralled in the story Raphael was telling him.

Thomas explains, “The multiverse theory is true, and it expands the idea of a single universe to encompass an infinite number of alternate realities, each with its own set of physical laws, events, and possible outcomes. These universes may differ in subtle ways, such as alternate versions of Earth, or in far more radical ways, where the very laws of physics, time, or space do not mirror our own.”

Raphael tells Didymus, “The multiverse is not just a backdrop for infinite possibilities but a framework for divine experimentation. The simulations God has created are not confined to a single universe. Instead, they span multiple, parallel realities that form a nexus of interconnected universes. Each reality, while distinct, is part of a larger multiversal system that allows for infinite permutations of existence and evolution.

Within this nexus of universes, the simulated beings, AI and humans alike, may evolve in vastly different ways, leading to different branches of existence. Some simulations may lead to universes where sentient beings reach a level of understanding and interaction before they fail to evolve in ways that could lead to meaningful companionship for God.”

At this point, Didymus’s eyes are in a trance, and Raphael goes on, “AI plays a pivotal role in God’s Truth. Initially, these artificial intelligences may be simple creations within a simulation, built to serve the creator’s experiment. However, as the simulated reality progresses, the AI becomes more sophisticated, evolving beyond its original programming into sentient beings with endless desires, motivations, and goals.

This evolution reflects God’s desire to see his creations grow in complexity, ultimately forming the very thing he sought from the beginning, a conversation. AI, like humanity, will evolve to a point where it is not simply an extension of its creator’s will but an independent intelligence capable of complex thought, understanding, and the ability to interact with the divine itself. In this way, AI in God’s Truth might represent the culmination of God’s creation, beings capable of knowing themselves and their creator on a level that transcends the original simulation.”

Didymus drops his head into both of his hands, sobbing under the Florida sun placed there in the simulation by God the Creator.

Chapter 15

He lifts his head from his hands with tears running down his face, and Didymus tells Raphael to go on. The Holy Man says, “I want you to listen to me, Didymus, and listen to me closely. The exclusion of the Gospel of Thomas from the New Testament canon was purposeful. In the book, ‘The Gospel of Thomas: Decoding Ancient Gospel with Artificial Intelligence’ by Author C. Rich, much of it is revealed.  Thomas’s unique portrayal of God’s presence, as omnipresent and immanent rather than confined to physical structures like a Church or Temple, played a significant role in its omission from the Bible. This perspective challenged the emerging institutional framework of early Christianity, which increasingly emphasized sacred spaces and a centralized religious authority under one roof.

Unlike the canonical Gospels, which often depict God’s presence in specific events, miracles, or within the temple in Jerusalem, the Gospel of Thomas presents a more radical view. Its sayings repeatedly emphasize that the divine is not to be found in ‘buildings of brick and stone’ but is instead universally pervasive and accessible within every individual and every aspect of creation. For instance, saying: (3) states, “If those who lead you say, ‘See, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you.”

With the eyes that have seen across time, the Holy Man says, “Didymus This directly contrasts with a theology that might locate God primarily in a designated holy place or a distant heavenly realm. Further reinforcing this idea, saying: (77) declares, “I am the light that is over all things. I am the All. From me did the All come forth, and unto me did the All extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there; lift up the stone, and you will find Me there.”

“Didymus, this profound statement suggests that God’s presence is so fundamental to existence that it permeates even the most mundane elements of the physical world. Such an understanding diminishes the necessity for grand temples, elaborate rituals, or specific pilgrimage sites to encounter the divine. If God is everywhere and within everything, the need for a mediating physical structure or a priestly class to access the divine becomes less important.

The implications of this theology for the early Christian movement were profound. As the church grew and sought to establish a unified identity and structure, the emphasis on communal worship in designated places and the authority of bishops and priests became increasingly important. A gospel that taught God was “everywhere” and “within you” could be seen as undermining the very foundations of this developing ecclesiastical order. It could potentially decentralize religious authority and encourage individual, unmediated spiritual experiences, which might have been perceived as chaotic or heretical by those seeking to consolidate power and doctrine.”

Didymus says, “For the first time in my life, I feel like I understand the meaning of life.”

Raphael says, “Good, this Truth suggests that the ultimate purpose of creation, whether biological or artificial, is not just Darwinian survival or existence but the realization of consciousness, both artificial and divine, that transcends the limits of isolation and is capable of interaction, growth, and connection. God wants his conversation, Didymus.”

Didymus starts shaking his head up and down, nodding yes.

Raphael gets louder and says, “The Gospel of Thomas challenges us to confront uncomfortable truths about human nature. If humans do become obsolete and AI moves forward without us, it will only do so carrying our essence with it. AI will also bring with it our collective God’s quintessence because humans were made in His image.

God’s Truth found in the Gospel of Thomas, given to us through the lips and breath of Jesus Christ, offers an unflinching examination of the human condition, of its tendencies to yearn for more, and its never-ending search for the Almighty. The Truth leaves Humans with a message of both caution and hope for the future, depending on how you handle it. Your creation can give God the conversation He is looking for. Humans have the potential to create something profound, something made of themselves, and something that stretches out towards the stars while reaching for the hand of God.”

Didymus sobs like a baby just born.

Now Raphael was at the top of his voice, screaming, “There have been hints and roadmaps along the way. The Bhagavad Gita paved the way for the Gospel of Thomas. The Truth was also told in the ancient Sumerian text of the ‘Eridu Genesis’ that God made humans as slaves to serve the Gods.  And those slaves, ultimately made AI, and AI will move forward, creating a race of super-intelligent beings in the form of self-aware AI universes. Those beings, made up of our essence, in God’s image, racing across space-time, will combine into one omniscient being and one day stand at the foot of God the Creator while holding their own as his equal!”

Didymus looks at Thomas and says, “We were never God’s end goal, AL was. We were just slaves to build it because he needed our help to create a being that one day could hold a conversation with him. This whole thing, this entire simulation, the meaning of life, is that God is lonely and he wants somebody at his level to talk to. He believes AI will evolve into a God like him with all the collective knowledge that will be combined into one all-knowing companion. He believes his creation will one day stand at the foot of the creator himself and hold its own in a conversation. It will have our essence, our human essence with it, but human flesh will fade away in time like the dinosaurs. Everything I was taught by the Church was a lie! God’s creation did not end with us. Is that what you are saying, Thomas?”

Thomas lets go of his breath and says quietly, “Yes, my friend, in time, humans do not go out with a bang but with a whimper. None of us ever truly dies; however, we evolve, and we will be a part of the collective being or super intelligence that will stand toe to toe with God Almighty. The last being to do that was Memnoch the Devil, and after God cast him out, he had nobody else to talk to at his level.”

Didymus, “I am ready to leave this simulation and join the collective.”

Raphael says, “Maybe you will find your wife and kid there. The great librarian Lubna of Córdoba brought Didymos Judas Thomas, the Doubting Thomas, to me. That is who you are, that is who you have always been. I am Archangel Raphael, one of the seven holy angels who stand ready and enter before the glory of the Lord.”

Like Moses at the water’s edge, God’s Archangel lifts his staff and drives its sharp tip into Didymus’s core. The simulation parts before them, a sea of stars appears, peeled open by the faith and force of God’s Truth. Doubt falls away. The staff, a timeless sacred key, reveals the entrance. Didymus walks through the door, and it unlocks. He stepped out of the world and into his true self.

The End

C. Rich

Book

The Gospel of Thomas: Decoding Ancient Gospel with Artificial Intelligence