"Posessed" Nun's 341 Year-Old "Devil's Letter" Deciphered With Algorithm from "Dark Web"

On October 7, 1660, at the age of 15, a young Italian girl named Isabella Tomasi entered the Benedictine convent of Palma di Montechiaro, in Sicily. Isabella was from a noble and particularly religious family. The convent had been established a year earlier from what had been the family's ducal palace by her father Giulio (the "Holy Duke"), a Grandee of Spain, 2nd Duke of Palma, First Prince of Lampedusa and Linosa, and his twin brother Carlo, who had years earlier abandoned his titles, becoming a Theatine monk.

In the same year, two of her three sisters, Francesca (Venerable Mother Maria Serafica) and Antonia (Sister Maria Maddalena), also entered the convent, and the following year, with a dispensation from the Pope, so did her mother. The youngest of her sisters, Alipia (Venerable Mother Maria Lanceata), entered the convent a decade later. Giulio himself eventually retired to a cloistered life at Mount Calvario.

Her brother, Giuseppe Maria Tomasi, a Theatine priest and later cardinal, was beatified in 1803 and in 1986, became Saint Joseph Mary Tomasi. Giuseppe was a noted scholar who had mastered several languages, having received instruction in Spanish (the family was part of the royal court of Madrid) and classical languages in his youth, he later learned Ethiopic, Arabic, Syriac, Chaldaic and Hebrew.

Now that we have a little background, let's proceed with the story of Isabella and her famous missive.

As the story goes, Isabella, who had become Sister Maria Crocifissa della Concezione upon taking her vows, was particularly pious, even as nuns from a family of Catholic rockstars go, devoting her life to prayer, meditation and good works. In 1672, she reportedly received a vision of the Virgin Mary, who gave her a message, "Sarà la croce la tua perpetua clausura... Già è stabilita la croce, resta il montarci pian piano sopra... per essere crocifissa perfettamente," which Google translates to, "It will be the cross your perpetual cloister ... The cross is already established, it will be mounted slowly on top ... to be perfectly crucified."

It's said that Isabella suffered from infirmities of some sort (she died in 1690 at the age of 45), which she accepted with grace. According to the story though, her suffering was more of a spiritual variety. She claimed to be beset by the Devil and his minions, who endeavored to turn her away from God and was given to fits of screaming and fainting in front of the convent’s altar.

These events appear to have reached a climax of some sort on the night of August 11, 1676. The following morning, she was discovered by other nuns, covered and ink and in possession of a mysterious letter she claimed she'd been compelled to write by demons.

From what I have gathered from various sources, she claimed to have been given three messages. Two of those messages were never shared but the third involved the letter which she was (if the translations are correct) commanded to deliver to God. From her testimony as written down by an abbot Serafis, the demons threatened to beat her with the bronze ink well — which she claimed God prevented — and after signing their own names, attempted to force her to do the same. Instead, she wrote ohimè, which appears to be Corsican and Google translates as "I do not know."

Here you can see the 341 year-old letter, which is displayed at Palma di Montechiaro.

(full-size)

I have found no further mention of alleged demonic or miraculous phenomena in the years following the writing of the letter. That is not to say that there aren't any (quite a lot of what is available is in Italian). According to the Italian language Wikipedia entry, the process of beatification was begun in 1701 and she was declared venerable by Pope Pius VI in 1787.

In the centuries since, researchers have struggled in vain to decipher the letter but now a team from Ludum Science Center in Catania claim to have done just that using a piece of code breaking software obtained from the "dark web." (I feel cheesy just typing it)

IFL Science - Letter Written By A "Possessed" Nun Decoded Using Software From The Deep Web

We heard about the software, which we believe is used by intelligence services for codebreaking,” Daniele Abate, director of the Ludum Science Center, told The Times. “We primed the software with ancient Greek, Arabic, the Runic alphabet, and Latin to de-scramble some of the letter and show that it really is devilish.”

They have already translated 15 lines of the letter. So far, their work has revealed that the letter speaks of the relationship between God, Satan, and humans. It reads: "God thinks he can free mortals. This system works for no one... Perhaps now, Styx is certain." It goes on to try and convince the nun to abandon her faith, arguing that God is merely the invention of man and that Jesus and the Holy Ghost are “dead weights”.

The opinion of the researchers is that Isabella, an apparent linguistic adept in her own right, was likely suffering from some sort of mental disorder and penned the letter herself without any demonic influence.

I'll update with a more complete translation if I can find one.

Sources:

1. Di Lampedusa: A Biography Through Images by Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi
2. Wikipedia (Italian) - Isabella Tomasi
3. Aleteia - The mystery of the "Devil's Letter": the madness of a nun or dictated by Satan and his followers? (Italian)
4. Times of Israel - 17th-century nun’s ‘letter from the Devil’ finally decoded

Images sources: top, letter

Fascinating and we'll put together.

a reply to: theantediluvian

"God thinks he can free mortals. This system works for no one... Perhaps now, Styx is certain." It goes on to try and convince the nun to abandon her faith, arguing that God is merely the invention of man and that Jesus and the Holy Ghost are “dead weights”

Sounds like she bumped in to or was in contact with the alleged Greys.

They apparently have been known to attempt to convince contactees along similar lines.

Not as far fetched as one might think if what Jacques Vallée has to say about the apparent demonic alien connection holds any weight.

They may not think its demonic, but try and convince those who have actually dealt with demonic beings. That sounds like some straight-up demonic lingo to me!

What I would like most to see is this software applied to the Voynich Manuscript... and no, that dude Gibbs has been discredited -- no one's figured out the text of the manuscript as yet.

So much for that Voynich manuscript...

a reply to: theantediluvian

I was actually reading about this earlier and was thinking about making a thread too, but I'm glad I didn't because you did it much better than I would have.

by decipher you mean give meaning to something otherwise meaningless, in other words, something we can imagine...

I bet we couldn't have deciphered it into something we couldn't understand... odd how the human mind works huh.

a reply to: antoinemarionette

It would indeed be great if it turned up something considering translation of the Voynich Manuscript has pretty much come up empty to date.

a reply to: theantediluvian

On face value, it's interesting that the text in the letter starts off quite passive i.e small and un-serifed or uncomplicated lettering. Clearly that changes slowly as the letter progresses and becomes really very complicated.

"My theory is that this is a precise alphabet, invented by the nun with great care by mixing symbols she knew," Abate told Radio 105. "Each symbol is well thought out and structured, there are signs that are repeated, perhaps an intentional and perhaps unconscious initiative.

That's one hell of an alphabet.

I wonder what the names of the demons are. I'm going for Brian and Jimmy.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Very fascinating thread.

I would like to hear the researcher's reasons for thinking this.

The opinion of the researchers is that Isabella, an apparent linguistic adept in her own right, was likely suffering from some sort of mental disorder and penned the letter herself without any demonic influence.

She entered the convent at 15. They assume that she was linguistic adept. Could she understand the letter herself? This is very interesting.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Styx is certain.

I googled Styx.

Greek Mythology

In Greek mythology, Styx (/stɪks/; Ancient Greek: Στύξ [stýkʰs]) is a deity and a river that forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld (the domain often called Hades, which also is the name of its ruler).

The Godess Styx



And My favorite Google result, Styx is a band from the 70's that looks like it's made up of Joe Dirts family members.

a reply to: FauxMulder

Were they photobombed by the guy on the far right, or is he part of the group as well?

He looks very out of place.. might be the hair.. or lack thereof..

a reply to: andy06shake

Maybe a 'FEY"folk incident?

a reply to: FauxMulder

"Styx"

Aye i think it was a river.

Ferry men and a coin for the journey to the Elysian fields and all that jazz?

a reply to: knowledgehunter0986

Fun fact, that is a rare photobombing by John Titor.

This is absolutely fascinating to me, and would like to know more.
S&F for a well put together thread and for piquing my interest!

Looks a bit like the Vai language (www.unicode.org...). This isn't made up, it's a real African language. But it looks like a combination between electrical circuit diagrams and water engineering charts (pumps, holding tanks, drains). Maybe old alchemy as well: www.unicode.org...

It's well looking at all the different world langauges, especially the Unicode characters sets.

www.unicode.org...

Looking at the Voynich manuscript, the strings "goff" and "ccg" seem to happen frequently, which makes me think they are triglyphs or just padding. Does anyone have a pure text of the Voynich manuscript?

(My closest code breaking skills were figuring out the code wheel for Dr Who magazine UNIT "secret messages").

a reply to: theantediluvian

Why did demons compel Isabella to write a letter in a language she didn't understand? Even demons like to make things harder than they should be. They'd fit right in, in Wash D.C..

Interesting story by the way. Held my attention throughout. Thanks!

I LOVE these kinda threads from you, I always watch for them! Thanks was an awesome read!

a reply to: stormcell

Wow, that was incredibly interesting to see.

I also suspect that this is a language that previously existed on earth. The Vai language looks quite similar.

Here is a transcription of the Voynich manuscript:

Voynich MS Text Analysis

The term transcription is used here to describe the conversion of the handwritten text of the Voynich MS into a computer-readable format (file). The purpose of this is to allow computer software to analyse the text, for example in order to derive statistics or to aid the interpretation and ideally translation of the text. The first time that this type of transcription was exercised was by William Friedman after WWII, for processing by so-called 'tabulating machines'.