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After more than 300 years, mysterious Devil’s Letter penned by a possessed nun is deciphered at last.

17th-century possessed Nun's The Devil's Letter

The Devil’s Letter is an encrypted missive housed in the cloistered monastery of Palma di Montechiaro in Italy.  Its message has stymied researchers for more than three-hundred years. The letter was said to have been penned in 1647 by the hand of Sister Maria Crocifissa della Concezione – under the guidance of the demon god, Lucifer.

Sister Maria finds mysterious runes

Born Isabella Tomasi, Sister Maria entered the Benedictine convent in Palma di Montechiaro at the age of 15. According to historians, Sister Maria awoke from a fainting spell with an odd feeling that the devil “had controlled her”. She noticed she was covered in ink and several letters lay scattered about her desk. Examining the letters, she found an unintelligible mix of ancient script and mysterious runes. Sister Maria admitted to others at the convent that the notes were messages from Lucifer delivered to Sister Maria while in a dreamlike state.

For centuries, researchers were unable to decipher the letter’s cryptic contents (only a single letter survived) – until September 2017 when researchers from Ludum Science Center in Catania, Sicily decrypted the letter using a sophisticated algorithm found on the dark web.

The Devil’s Letter decrypted

The cryptographic algorithm used to decipher the letter was discovered in leaked software believed to have been written by a nation state (likely the United States). The software was unique, clever, and extremely well written. Researchers told the London Times,

“We primed the software with Ancient Greek, Arabic, the Runic alphabet and Latin to de-scramble some of the letter.”

Their ploy worked. Like fingerprints appearing on a fogged window, the letter’s message began to unravel piece by piece. Their first glimpse into the letter’s twisted meaning revealed this simple sentence:

“God thinks he can free mortals – but the system works for no one.”

Researchers say the encrypted text describes the relationship between humans, God and Satan in a rambling and inconsistent manner. It also contains fragments of text degrading God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as “dead weights” that mankind should attempt to shirk. Another phrase went on to say, “perhaps now, Styx is certain.” Styx is the mythic river that separates mankind from the afterworld.

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17th-century possessed Nun's The Devil's Letter via Times of Israel by Wikipedia Commons with usage type - Public Domain

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17th-century possessed Nun's The Devil's Letter via Times of Israel by Wikipedia Commons with usage type - Public Domain

 

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