Slate has republished “The Mystery of the Millionaire Metaphysician,” a 2001 Lingua Franca article by James Ryerson about his detective work into a shadowy, deep-pocketed benefactor of traditional metaphysics. The opening:

“In June 2000, the philosopher Dean Zimmerman moved from the University of Notre Dame to Syracuse University with his wife and three kids, only to see their new house catch fire the day they moved in. Much of what they owned was destroyed. ‘We were out of the house for six months,’ he recalls. ‘It was a miserable experience.’

The week after the fire, Zimmerman got a fortune cookie at a Chinese restaurant that brought encouraging news: ‘You will move to a wonderful new home within the year,’ it read. Zimmerman, a metaphysician with side interests in resurrection and divine eternity, was heartened by the prophecy. And when he returned to the restaurant three months later, his second fortune was equally promising: ‘A way out of a financial mess is discovered as if by magic!’

The next day Zimmerman received a letter from the A.M. Monius Institute. Printed on official-looking stationery and signed by the institute’s director, Netzin Steklis, the letter offered Zimmerman a ‘generous’ sum of money to review a sixty-page work of metaphysics titled ‘Coming to Understanding.’ As the letter explained, the institute “exists for the primary purpose of disseminating the work ‘Coming to Understanding’ and encouraging its critical review and improvement.’ For Zimmerman’s philosophical services, the institute was prepared to pay him the astronomical fee of twelve thousand U.S. dollars.” (Thanks Longform.)