Brother Zalig shifted from one foot to the other, hands in his pockets, adjusting his prayer garb underneath his robe. He shifted his glance from nowhere in particular to Senior Hamil, and then back again to nowhere.

“Well,” he began, “I think that I have cause to be somewhat pensive. After all, it’s not every day that one has the next day to look forward to as the possible day that He returns to reclaim his Kingdom.”

Senior Hamil chuckled at Brother Zalig’s use of the word possible. This was a theological debate that these two friends had had a countless number of times, but Senior Hamil had a few minutes before noon meal; and he knew that despite the spiritual turmoil that this mystery apparently caused Brother Zalig, that brother Zalig loved a good debate as much as he did.

“Brother Zalig,” he began, “I can’t help but notice your use of the word ‘possible’ in that sentence. You say it as if you have some doubt as to the accuracy of the High Mathematician’s calculations of the date of His return.”

Brother Zalig’s body sprang to attention, as if ready for battle, all pensiveness replaced with alertness. “How can I not have some doubt as to the accuracy; of the date or even the return! Neither you nor I have made those calculations ourselves.”

“Yes, it is true,” Senior Hamil countered “that there is a certain amount of faith that we must place in our brother’s abilities, but that is the work for which they were raised and trained for, and do we not have more evidence of their capabilities than we do of their shortcomings? After all, a thousand years ago, man could barely design a space craft that could make it to the end of our solar system after a decade of travel. Now look at the great feats of engineering of which we are capable of performing!”

“All right - I’ll give you that.” Brother Zalig stated, tapping the table energetically with his forefinger, a fire beginning to creep into his eyes. “But lets talk once again about what was decoded. Three thousand year old holy scriptures, several books of which were not even discovered until about 500 years ago. How do you know someone didn’t just write those books 500 years ago. Esoterics, perhaps, who were so hungry to solve the missing pieces of their code that they simply decided to fill in the holes themselves. How can you take on blind faith the authenticity of those books?”

Senior Hamil chuckled inwardly. Brother Zalig must be nervous about tomorrow indeed. There was no doubt in anybody’s mind that the most recent holy scriptures were in fact carbon dated to within a decade of the other holy scriptures. And, in fact, it was the content of these additional scriptures which finally allowed the mathematicians to complete their work, 700 years after having stumbled upon the codification of the scriptures. So whether the recently discovered books were authentic or not was really irrelevant; it was their contents which finally allowed mankind to achieve the state of God-like.

Senior Hamil reminisced warmly on his religious history classes. He recalled how the Traditionalists had originally attempted to glean teachings from a literal interpretation of the scriptures 3000 years ago. He recalled how many people had fought, killed, and died to defend their particular interpretation of the scriptures, claiming that theirs was the true truth while all the while war, crime, greed and corruption prevailed across the earth.

And then the handful of esoteric spiritualists who, after 1,500 years of religious confusion, discovered the possibility of a hidden codification of the scriptures; one which, if broken, could possibly provide mankind with the true answers he had so fervently been searching for. And then another 500 years of secrecy as this discipline was developed, hidden behind dark shadows and fear of retribution by Traditionalists who couldn’t have a viewpoint which differed from their own.

And then perhaps the most important even in history - the fortuitous pairing of an esoteric spiritualist with a brilliant computer programmer, together the two of them finally breaking the code for the first seven books. Finally, mankind had the tools needed to advance themselves to a level necessary to live amongst each other with trust and love instead of war and poverty.

And lastly, the discovery of the missing two books, the books which at last provided the missing pieces of code which allowed the majority of earth’s population to achieve the state of spirituality described in the earlier books as “God-like”. ‘For woe be to them who refuse to pursue the state of God-like, for heaven and earth are reserved for them, and upon the return of Him will be the destruction of the un-godly.’

The destruction of the un-godly. This was one of the passages which translated verbatim when de-coded. Though no one was absolutely sure in what form this destruction would take place, there was no doubt as to who the un-godly were - approximately a million or so of earth’s five billion people, mostly devout Traditionalists who had refused to avail themselves of the spiritual technology made available by the Decodification. Their claim rang loud that anything which deviated from the traditional teachings was blasphemous; that anything not based on a literal translation of the scriptures was the devil’s work. True, their numbers were small enough that, noisy though they were, they were unsuccessful in hindering the emergence of the New Civilization. But their presence was a constant reminder that even the God-like were not entirely all-powerful in bringing things about. And tomorrow the God-like would face up to the consequences of their limitations and witness the fate of the un-godlike. Would it truly be their destruction so that they actually no longer existed? Or would it be the destruction of their un-godliness and their transformation to God-like, assisted by His power, greater than even earth’s 5 billion combined? What ever form it took, there was no doubt that it was necessary; for despite the spiritual attainment of the God-like thus far, their further progress was definitely hindered by the presence of the one million un-godlike, their un-godliness hanging in the spiritual ether like a wall preventing the progression of the God-like to a higher kingdom.

The fate of the un-godly: Now that was something worth pondering; something Senior Hamil had, in fact, spent many, many hours doing. And after tomorrow he would never need to ponder that idea again.

“Senior Hamil!” Brother Zalig looked at his friend with an expression of dismay, surprised that Senior Hamil would allow his mind to drift during such an important discussion.

“Forgive me, Brother,” Senior Hamil warmly requested. “Let us continue this discussion over some food.” Brother Zalig looked at the clock on the wall and noticed that it was, in fact, time for noon meal.

Chapter 2

On this day, however, all activity stopped while five billion people waited in anticipation at the designated time. The calculations had been precise and the time and place had been determined with exactness. Though the arrival would have a physical entrance point, the actual presence would exist on a spiritual level; hence, five billion people would at once experience His arrival.

The mere anticipation of His arrival had most people elevated to their highest level of spirituality; some elevated even higher than they had previously known. There was no doubt to anyone, however, when His emergence began, his growing presence suddenly filling each and everyone’s essence with a beauty and a sense of peace never before even dreamed of, increasing to even greater levels as his entrance to the world of Earth was completed. Five billion people gasped inwardly as they experienced a direct line of communication with Him, at once realizing why they were merely God-like and He was God. They immediately heard what He said. Not with words, necessarily, but they clearly understood the meaning of his communication. In less than an instant, they heard that he was pleased to be back, that he had waited patiently but anxiously for the last three thousand years to return to claim his Kingdom and his people. They felt his attention fix on the great number of God-like and the small number of un-godly, and with great pleasure they experienced his surprise over this.

“You have done well”, he spoke. “There is yet much work to be done, and there is much in store for you.” The more aware of the Esoterics noticed that He seemed to have some continuing attention on the one million un-godly, but what this meant they were not sure of. Perhaps he was pleased with such a small number of people who had not chosen the route of God-like; but then again, maybe he was dissatisfied with how large an amount of people the Esoterics had been unable to enlighten.

“You will be pleased to find out what I have in store for you.” He continued. The Esoterics were becoming excited. This was the day for which they had lived for and prayed for. Their greatest dreams were coming to their realization.

“For the last three thousand years I have allowed you to live and grow without interference, free to pursue your own course and make your own choices. And you have done well, and so now I have returned. There is greatness ahead of you, and together we will do great things; but just as I have always allowed you free choice, so today you must freely choose to follow me.”

The Esoteric’s excitement was growing to a state of ecstasy. For many, there was still an unbelief that this was actually happening. Some dared to imagine what might be in store for them, but most just reveled in the marvel of this wondrous occasion.

“You are my children, and I am your father, and together as a family we will go and build a new kingdom; and together, there will be no obstacle too great. There is nothing which can now stand in our way. You will reach heights that you never imagined. You will live adventures that you never dreamed possible. You will achieve greatness like that which has never before existed!”

The God-like were near a pitch of spiritual frenzy.

“And you, the un-godly, though you have made the wrong choices up till now, today will be the destruction of your past and the birth of your new future. Today, your sorrows will end and your everlasting life will begin, where you will achieve all that you have hoped for and all that you have searched for. Today you will begin anew. Today you will choose to follow the path that will lead to your dreams.”

This spiritual experience was beyond anything the Traditionalists had ever experienced in their long history of Traditionalism; and these few brief moments were more than enough to convince them to choose the path of the God-like and follow Him to wherever he would lead them.

Suddenly, their spiritual ecstasy was interrupted with a ripple of change as a new entity made itself known. Where a spiritual frenzy existed moments ago, there was now a confusion as this entity made himself known.

“I am here”, the entity began, “he whom you call by various names but collectively know as the devil.”

With great confusion, the Esoterics looked to Him to see His response, and saw that He held the devil in his awareness with a confidence, a supreme all-knowingness that communicated to the 5 billion observers that this was no surprise to Him, and that He was fully prepared to deal with it.

With a love and compassion which was even beyond what the Esoterics had ever known, He addressed the devil. “You are late, my fallen angel. Too late. These people have already chosen a path, and they chose to follow me.”

The appearance of the devil was no surprise to Traditionalists, as their literal interpretation of the scriptures had prepared them for this. The Esoterics, on the other hand, were greatly surprised, as their knowledge of the world did not include a believe in the devil. This was a fable that people of lower spiritual levels invented in order to instill in people a fear of retribution for wrongdoing. They themselves had not recognized the existence of the devil for two thousand years. But despite this, at the periphery of their awareness, the Esoterics begin to recognize a certain familiarity about this devil entity. They began to vaguely realize that, in fact, they did know this devil; that without even realizing it, there had been a fear in the back of their hearts, a fear never fully observed and so faint that it might not have even existed, yet frightening enough that they were once afraid of it - enough to resist it and deny it and to cause it to go out of existence.

“Look closely at that fear, my children”. The Esoterics shuddered at being called “my children” by the devil; yet, there was a strangely-growing desire amongst the Esoterics to listen to him. “Look deep in your hearts and observe this thing which you once feared and then forgot; this one last untruth which has been clouding your vision and abilities. You have come far and observed much, and I am proud of you; but there is still this one fear which you have yet to face, which upon facing will set you free.”

“Don’t listen to him;” He spoke loudly, “he is the devil!”

But it was too late. The Esoterics had already begun looking within their hearts, and they saw that it was true, that there was in fact an untruth so subtle yet so incredibly fearful, that it had avoided even the self examination of the God-like.

“You knew me once”, the devil continued, “but by a different name: Instruare. What you don’t know yet is that this is a very large Universe, larger than you can imagine. And the Universe has given birth to many, many children, again more than you can imagine, living in many different worlds. There are two teachers in this Universe, both of whom teach two very different things. I am one of those teachers, and he who you regard as God is the other. The children of this Universe are free to learn from either of us. I stand for one thing, He for another; it is up to you to discover which teachings you stand for.”

“It was I who started you on the path towards God-like, shortly after the Universe gave birth to you.”

“Lies, lies, My Children! Do not listen to his trickery”, He said.

“It was I who started you on the path towards God-like”, he repeated, “but not with scriptures. It was He who gave you scriptures, their truths so ingeniously concealing the lies which would forever throw you off the path of Godliness. And it was He who assigned the name of devil to me, and instilled in you a fear of me so great as to cause you to close your ears to me so completely that you forgot even who I was. But it was I who then rearranged the scriptures against the Code; the Code which I had faith that you would break before the date of the Coming, soon enough to resume the path of Godliness and achieve the state of God-like before He could return to claim you as his.

“You see, it is somewhat of a game. Those who’s hearts stayed pure would be receptive to the Code, and would eventually achieve the state of God-like. By the Coming, they would be ready to leave with me and pursue new adventures, virtuous adventures, beyond anything yet imagined by the people of Earth. Those not pure of heart would remain as the un-godly and, upon the Coming, would be assumed as his minions to rampage the universe in pursuit of his evil desires.”

He gazed at the devil, and then to the people of Earth, and He could see that they were actually considering an examination of what the devil was saying.

“Please, My Children, do not make this mistake!” He pleaded.

“And here we come full circle to that memory in your heart which you must finally face, that painful event in which you were tricked into forgetting me and who I really am,” the devil enjoined.

They were afraid. Maybe what the devil said was true; maybe they would look and discover that he was in fact the true voice of goodness, tricked from their memory, as he said. But they were afraid - afraid that they were going to look within their hearts and discover an effectively suppressed propensity for evil; afraid that they would discover that their true desire was to follow the devil; afraid that their despising of this idea had caused them to deny its presence and force it out of their consciousness, even denying the very existence of this entity, who so clearly did, in fact, exist.

“Then so be it”, the devil told them, seeing their thoughts. “If that is what is in your hearts, then have the courage to see it. If what I tell you is true, then you put your fears to rest; but if what you fear is true, then you will no longer be living a lie. Either way you will be free.”

And they knew this was true, so they looked. And the devil smiled, for he knew that they saw. And He cried, for he knew that their path had been forever changed.

Chapter 3

“One million!!” He screamed. “Completely useless for my plans!!!” And in an instant, each and every one of the un-godly was destroyed in an eruption of hate and pain.