A mysterious coded letter penned in the 17th century by a nun who claimed to be possessed by the Devil himself has finally been deciphered using an algorithm found, oddly enough, on the Dark Web.
Sister Maria Crocifissa della Concezione was writing letters at the convent of Palma di Montechiaro on August 11 1676, when she claimed that Lucifer was attempting to lure her into serving evil reports La Stampa.
She then wrote a note that included a variety of symbols and languages including Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic and Runic. In the intervening centuries, scholars, cryptographers, mystics and occultists have tried and failed to decipher the text.
Recently, a team from The Ludum Science Center in Sicily happened to stumble upon an algorithm on the Dark Web which allowed them to decipher the seemingly unintelligible code.
“We heard about the software, which we believe is used by intelligence services for codebreaking,” said Daniele Abate, director of the center, as cited by The Times.
“We primed the software with ancient Greek, Arabic, the Runic alphabet and Latin to descramble some of the letter and show that it really is devilish,” he said.
The newly minted translation of the bizarrely complex letter has fuelled speculation that not only was the nun a rather talented linguist but also that she may have been schizophrenic.
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The letter allegedly described the Holy Trinity in Catholicism, God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit, as being "dead weights," and goes on to state that, "God thinks he can free mortals,” while encouraging to abandon humans.
“I personally believe that the nun had a good command of languages, which allowed her to invent the code, and [she] may have suffered from a condition like schizophrenia, which made her imagine dialogues with the Devil,” Abete added.
“That has not stopped numerous interested Satanic sects contacting me since I published our findings,” Abete added.
"My theory was that this is a precise alphabet, invented by the nun with great care mixing symbols she knew. Each symbol is well thought out and structured, there are signs that are repeated, perhaps intentionally or perhaps unconsciously," Abete said, as cited by The International Business Times.