March 6, 2025 • 49 mins
Our father, who art in heaven...In this episode of Susto, Ayden delves into the haunted corridors and history of the Ex Convent of Santa Mónica in Puebla, Mexico. A building with a long, sordid history that has left scars and legends deep in the city.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hey, girlfriends, it's me Adrian or Aiden. Either way, I
am still your host and you are still listening to
or watching Soustal, the podcast of paranormal folklore from Latin
American and Hispanic cultures. Yes, you heard me right. This
is another video episode. If you are signed up on Patreon,
then you get episodes early and ad free, and if
(00:46):
you are a best cool friend, then you also have
access to this video episode. It's just me here and
my little dungeon. There's my little ghosty over here. Got
the lights going on and you can see my horns
in their full glory. So thank you for being here
once again. And if this is your first time to
the show, thank you for pulling up grab a Rosarie.
It's not going to help you here, but it might
(01:09):
make you feel better. I'm kidding, girlfriends, I am recording
this pretty late at night, so I'm trying to I'm trying.
I'm being very honest here with you, and I'm trying
to keep the energy up. But it is about to
be ten, which is my bedtime. But things have been hectic.
I put the heck in hectic, so this was my
(01:29):
this was my chance tonight to record this episode. And
stay on schedule so that I'm not scrambling literally at
the last minute to post this up. Thank you for
your patience and for showing me grace and kindness as
I push through and muster up all the energy, any
energy that I have left me for today. And also
not only that, but to you all know I've said
(01:51):
this many times. I do not record or edit at night.
But here we are. I'm trying not to like imagine
things in my proof, so you and me we're locked
in together. If you see anything, do not tell me again.
This is my ghost friend right here. That is the
only ghost allowed in this room, in this apartment, to
be honest. So anyway, not too many updates. I do
(02:13):
have a favor to ask you. I put a call
out on social media and on Patreon. I want to
do an episode and probably a video to go with it,
basically a sustal Q and a to get to know
me a little better. I know that I pour my
heart out on this show constantly, but if you would
like to get to know me a little bit more,
and to officially introduce you all to my ghost writer, Jeff.
(02:36):
You'll have heard me mention Jeff many times, but I
do want to give you the opportunity to get to
know him better because now he is officially part of SUSTAL.
He is helping me research and write these stories. And yeah,
if you all have any questions about him, us as
a unit, like a working unit here on SUSTAL, us
as a couple, we've been together for ten years this year. Now,
(02:58):
questions for me individually, just any questions that you have
about Sustal, about us, please feel free to send them in.
I don't think you all would get too wild, but honestly,
you've heard the things that I've said on this show,
the things that I've shared. So what isn't left field
or what really truly would be pushing that boundary? Why
don't you test it? You send me an email a
(03:22):
DM if you find the post on social media commented,
I'll be posting it on stories again. We're going to
be accepting a few more questions. We have some great
ones already, but I want to give everybody the opportunity.
So I was thinking, let me say this on the
show itself so that everybody can hear it. So again,
we'll be doing a SUSTO Q and A which I'm
thinking about making it an episode, of course, available to everybody,
(03:43):
and then the video version kind of like maybe vlog
style interview. I don't know. It'll be something with Jeff
and I so that you all again can get to
know me a little bit better, maybe if you'd like to,
and to introduce you officially to Jeff. I keep motioning
over here. This is Jeff right here. Those little ghost
pill up that's him, but not really, just pretend that
(04:03):
he's here. So yeah, just wanted to put that out
there because I'm very excited about the idea of doing that.
It is going to happen, but I'm very excited about
making it happen. Speaking of making things happen, let's make
this episode happen. Before we do, I do want to
give a kind of warning. Listener discretion advised. Please always
take care of yourselves if you feel like you need
to dip. This episode is not for you. I obviously
(04:24):
completely understand, but I do want to give a heads
up so it doesn't catch you off guard that in
this episode there are mentions of rape, abuse and violence
against women. So again, listener discretion advised. And with that
being said, let's go ahead and jump into today's episode,
which is the story of the ex Convento the Santa Monica.
(05:00):
In the heart of Pueblo, Mexico. Down an old cobblestone street,
stands an unassuming building with high stone walls and heavy
wooden doors. By day it is a museum filled with
sacred paintings, gilded crosses, and artifacts of faith. But by night,
(05:22):
something else lingers, something that never left. For centuries. Those
walls held secrets. The cries of the tormented echo through
the cold corridors. Shadows move where no one should be,
and if you listen just closely enough, you might hear
(05:42):
the whispered prayer of a long dead nun, still begging
for salvation. This is the story of the ex Gunvento
the Santa Monica. Long before it became a convent, the
building was something far darker. In sixteen, a wealthy and
devout woman named Dona Ursula de Vega established it as
(06:06):
a house of confinement for women deemed unfit for society. Here,
noble families sent their disobedient daughters, unwonted wives, and wayward
young women to be reformed. Some had committed crimes, others
had simply spoken too freely loved the wrong person, or
(06:28):
disobeyed their fathers or patriarchs of the home. Once inside,
they were locked away, forced into silence and prayer, their
bodies and souls broken, until they were deemed pure enough
to return to the world. If they were ever allowed
to leave at all. Murmurs of the reformatory's goings on
(06:51):
spread among the locals, Tales of women who entered and
were never seen again, of cries in the night of
graves ug beneath the floors. Around sixteen eighty the house
was repurposed into a convent by doctor Manuel Fernandez de
Santa Cruz, and the past was buried away, but the
(07:12):
walls never forget. Now an Augustinian recollect convent, Santa Monica
became a place of prayer and devotion. The nuns lived
in strict seclusion, sworn to a lifetime of silence and sacrifice.
To the outside world. It was a sanctuary, but inside
(07:35):
something was rotting. Young women, many against their will, were
forced into holy vows by their families. Some had known
love before, only to have it ripped away and replaced
with cold stone walls. Some dared to no pleasure, a
carnal sin, and paid the price. The convent's leaders, us
(08:00):
with preserving purity, took their roles to terrifying extremes. Nuns
who spoke out were punished, locked away in dark isolation cells,
where some went mad. Those who showed weakness in their
faith were given painful penances, from wearing spiked chains beneath
their habits to whipping themselves bloody in the name of redemption.
(08:25):
Some still driven to despair, dyed by suicide, hanging from
the rafters of their tiny chambers, or flinging themselves from
the convent's highest tower. And yet these were not the
worst of the convin's sins. In eighteen fifty seven, the
Mexican government enacted the Liberal Reform laws, ordering the closure
(08:49):
of all religious institutions. The nuns should have left, but
they didn't. Instead, they sealed themselves inside, vanishing from the world,
surviving in silence, believing that as long as they prayed,
as long as they remained faithful, God would protect them.
(09:11):
At first, the people of Puebla helped them, smuggling in food, medicine,
and other supplies, but as the years stretched into decades,
the outside world began to forget them. The convent became
an echo a faint memory. The Augustinian nuns were a
(09:32):
contemplative order and did not sing, and in that silence,
monsters flourished and the women suffered. One of the nuns
was only sixteen when she arrived before the convent went
into isolation, sent by her father to atone for a
sin she never committed. The young nun dreamed of the
(09:54):
world outside of color and warmth and laughter, but inside
Santa Monica, the only warmth came from the candle flames
at the altar. One night, the head mistress sent for her.
A visitor had arrived, a priest who would visit the
convent in secret. Dressed in fine black robes, his face
(10:18):
hidden by the flickering light. She was led into a
candlelit chamber and told to confess. The priest listened, and
instead of offering absolution, his hand caressed her wrist. She
could not protest. She was conditioned to submit to church leaders,
(10:40):
no matter their request. In her silence, the priest went
beyond simply touching her wrist. For years he came to
the convent under the cover of darkness. The young nun
was not the only one who suffered his advances, which
betrayed his vows and destroyed the minds and bodies of
(11:00):
the women in the convent. When the young nun's belly
began to swell, the other nuns turned the other cheek,
whispering prayers instead of offering solace. There was no pity
in their eyes, only fear. A child born within those
walls could not be allowed. One night, she was led
(11:23):
away by an elder sister. Not all of the women
who suffered in the convent were victims. Some were monsters
in their own right. The elder sister was one of
those monsters, a woman who believed that suffering was the
path to salvation. When the convent fell into darkness, she
(11:44):
did not despair. She thrived. She punished the weak, She
silenced the disobedient, And when the young nun came to
her with a belly too large to hide in her tunic,
the elder sister led her to the well behind them convent.
No one claims to know what happened, but they all
(12:05):
heard the hollow splash, and the young nun never returned.
By May nineteen thirty four, the government raided the convent,
expecting to find an abandoned ruin. Instead, they found nuns
who had never set foot outside. Women so pale they
(12:25):
looked like ghosts, their fingers curled and gnarled from decades
of clutching rosaries. And beneath the floors they found bones.
The first were small, infant bones, twisted and frail. Some
were buried beneath the chapel, others hidden in the thick
(12:47):
stone walls. Their skulls were cracked, as if they had
not simply been laid to rest, but discarded. Then they
found the women. Some had been walled up alive, skeletons
frozen in the fetal position, their bones pressing against the
inside of the bricks, as if they had clawed at
(13:09):
the stone until their final breath escaped their lungs. Others
bore signs of violence, fractured skulls, shattered ribs, broken jaws.
Some had chains still wrapped around their wrists and ankles,
their bones locked in eternal pennance. The most disturbing were
(13:29):
the remains of pregnant women. Their bodies showed clear evidence
of abuse. Some still had iron spikes pressed into their bones,
a cruel form of atonement meant to purify their sins.
In a single chamber, they found dozens the walls were
painted a rust color, not with frescoes, but with old,
(13:53):
dried blood. Somewhere beneath the convent, hidden behind a stone
wall their there is a room that no one speaks of.
It was not meant for prayer or penance, rather for
something sinister, between the nuns who refused to obey and
the infants who were never meant to live. No one
(14:15):
knows how many bodies lie beneath the convent. No records
exist of how many were found. The officials who oversaw
the investigation kept silent. Today, the Exgunvento de Santa Monica
is a religious art museum, filled with relics of faith,
golden altars, and portraits of nuns whose faces remain eerily lifelike,
(14:39):
but something else remains. Visitors report disembodied voices in the corridors,
murmuring prayers in an empty chapel. Some say they have
felt cold hands brushed against their shoulders, or heard the
quiet sobs of the many women trapped between worlds. Among
these spirits is a figure and a blome, blood stained habit,
(15:01):
sometimes seen near the well, rocking back and forth, muttering
prayers that no one can understand. Some see a young
nun that still walks the halls, her ghostly form clutching
her stomach, singing lullabies to the child she was never
allowed to hold. The most terrifying legend speaks of a
(15:24):
crying nun, a spectral figure seen standing at a window,
her veil soaked in blood. Some say she was a
young woman forced into the convent who died by suicide
rather than bear the shame of her alleged sin. Visitors
to the museum sometimes report hearing a soft scratching sound
(15:45):
near the floorboards of the old dormitory. Some say it
is just the wood settling, others believe it is the unborn,
still trying to claw their way into this world. So
if you ever find yourself and Puebla standing before the
threshold of the ex Convento the Santa Monica, ask yourself,
(16:07):
do you dare step inside? Welcome back, cool friends. Okay,
that one. I'm glad I gave that listener discretion kind
(16:29):
of warning. That one was pretty intense. And this is
a real place. These stories, these legends, they there stories
and legends. So many of the things in this story
they're tall tales, they're rumors, so they're like they're posted
out there on the internet. Obviously we're not just gonna
I mean, yes, sometimes we write stories, right, we make
(16:51):
up stories. But this is one of those places that
exists and it has this really like lurid kind of
mysterious history, and people, you know, when Ith and I'm like,
you know, added their bits and pieces to it. I
don't know. It's one of those where there's a lot
of legend around it, and it's basically what I'm trying
to say is it's it's unfounded. Many, if not all,
(17:12):
of these things have not been proven to be true.
So it's one of those things that just kind of
took a life of its own. Some of these things
are true, however, So a note here from Jeff. He
wrote some historical background about the liberal reform laws that
led to the convent going secret. So this actually did happen.
This was a place that it was a reformatory. So
(17:33):
this is a place where they sent quote unsavory women
to go basically to go get fixed, quote right, places
that we know now existed but were just terrible places
where people were sent away. People were discarded basically for
whatever reason, from like real mental health issues to simply
being inconvenient to somebody else, or being considered inconvenient because
(17:57):
they weren't actually but anyway, So this continues. The Catholic
Church in Mexico had supported the French invasion of Mexico
since they believed that it would bring the country closer
to traditional Catholicism as opposed to blending of Catholicism and
indigenous practices that was happening in the country. Surprise, surprise,
the church was like, yes, please, more colonization, bring it
(18:20):
on right, instead of allowing this like folk Catholicism as
I think we have learned to call it, letting that
happen and like bloom and like be its own thing,
they were like, nope, no room for that. Christianity Catholicism
only so French people come over here and help us
out right. So this continues. So after supporting the first
French invasion in the eighteen thirties and the overthrow of
(18:41):
the dictator Santa Ana, liberals in Mexico had a strong reaction.
They crafted a constitution that put strict rules on churches
and claimed property. It was a very anti Catholic time
in the country, so many churches went into hiding. This
convent is one of the ones that went into hiding.
Here's more information about a lot of f or the
liberal reform laws, and this is a Wikipedia link. So
(19:04):
these reform laws that sent essentially, they sent these churches
into hiding. They took power away from the churches, I think,
essentially what was happening. It's known or this era is
known as Latiforma, and this Wiki entry says in the
history of Mexico, Latiforma or the reform or reform laws,
refers to a pivotal set of laws, including a new constitution,
(19:25):
that were enacted in the Second Federal Republic of Mexico
during the eighteen fifties after the Plan of Autla overthrew
the dictatorship of Santa Ana. They were intended as modernizing
measures social, political, and economic, aimed at undermining the traditional
power of the Catholic Church and the army. I'm into
these laws already, these reform laws. The reforms sought separation
(19:46):
of church and state, equality before the law and economic development.
These anti clerical laws were enacted in the Second Mexican
Republic between eighteen fifty five and eighteen sixty three, during
the governments of Juan Alvarez, Ignacio Gomonfort, and Benito Juatz.
The laws also limited the ability of Catholic Church and
Indigenous communities from collectively holding land. Okay, pause, give the
(20:10):
indigenous communities their land. What the fuck are you talking about? Okay?
So then this says the Liberal government sought the revenues
from the distalment of church property, which could fund the
civil war against Mexican Conservatives and to broaden the base
of property ownership in Mexico and encouraging private enterprise. Several
of them were raised to constitutional status by the Constituent
(20:31):
Congress that drafted the Liberal Constitution of eighteen fifty seven.
Although the laws had a major impact on the Catholic
Church in Mexico, liberal proponents were not opposed to the
church as a spiritual institution, but rather saw a secular
state and a society not dominated by religion. So I
feel like generally I agree with that. Again, I have
(20:52):
some hesitancy with the taking the land from indigenous communities,
but it seems like there I'm not trying to justify this,
but what I getting from that is that they were
just like, nope, clean slate, everybody's equal. It doesn't matter
who you are. But then that doesn't that's not actually
equal then, because they're stealing this land from indigenous people anyway.
So you get the idea. These reform laws were to
(21:14):
take power from the church, and so that's why these
churches had to go into hiding, right. You know, people
you were kind of turning their backs on the church
or maybe like being vehemently against it, and so they
were like, Okay, we gotta we've got to tone it down,
tone down the Catholicism, you know what I mean. So
we have a couple links here that we're going to
go through. This first one is from a adventures dot
(21:36):
abroad or adventures dash abroad dot com. It's a blog
entry and it's just generally about Buebla, Mexico. Again, all
of these links, the direct links will be in these
houst to Google docs on Patreon, but on Adventures Abroad,
they're again just talking about Bubbla, Mexico. It's kind of
like the history of Buebla and let's see a little
bit about it, says As noted in the introduction, Buebla
is the only major Mexican city that was actually founded
(21:59):
by the Spanish and not by the indigenous peoples already
on site. Well, they didn't have to found it, they
were already there, Okay. Anyway, it says by fifteen thirty
it was apparent that Mexico City was going to be
the capital and most important city in New Spain, as
the Spanish named what is now Mexico and huge swaths
of western United States. Vera Cruz was the Atlantic port
(22:19):
that was the major entry and exit point for the colony.
Buebla was founded in fifteen thirty one as a stopping
point on the main road connecting Veracruz and Mexico City.
As is often the case with cities founded by a
religious order, as was Buebla, there is a certain amount
of gobbledegooch, that's what it says here, associated with why
it was founded where it was. In Buebla's case, the
(22:40):
Mexico City bishops supposedly had a dream of angels drawing
out the outline of a city in a place of
rivers and woods. He marched his minions out into the country,
and when they found a place suitable for a new
city because it had water and lumber, he knew this
must be the place. Thus the original name Buebla de
Los Angeles or City of Angels. Thankfully, it eventually got
(23:02):
shortened into just Buebla one los Angeles in North America.
Is enough who wrote this this is funny? Well, as
I scrolled to the bottom, there are also pictures here
of well many places in Buebla. But they also talk
about the Museo the Santa Monica or Museo the Arete Reljoso,
(23:23):
the Santa Monica, And here it says. In eighteen fifty seven,
Mexico adopted a new constitution that effectively nationalized all church
property and ended its role as a political player, always
on the side of conservative forces in the back and
forth of Mexican politics since independence in eighteen twenty one. However,
the Church did not stop its meddling and actively supported
the two French attempts to take over Mexico. Pretends to
(23:45):
be shocked. Eventually, most Mexicans were fed up, and they
turned on the church and treated priests and nuns as
subversive enemies. The shoe was now on the other foot,
and the clergy were forced to go into hiding. Graham Greens.
The Power and the is based on one such priest
in the province of Tabasco and is well worth reading
(24:05):
if you want to know more about the long and
shaky relationship between church and state in Mexico. This continues,
believe it or not, until nineteen thirty four. The Museo
de Santa Monica was a secret convent where nuns lived
behind closed walls, going about their business unbeknownst to outside
authorities for decades. Today it is the repository of a
large number of religious artworks, as well as an example
(24:27):
of how the nuns led their lives without anyone knowing
they were there. That's really creepy, to be honest. I mean,
like there's nothing inherently creepy about it. They were just people, right,
but that they were living in secret within the city,
and like they just went unnoticed for that long is
It's just weird to me that they were just there.
But it wouldn't be weird because you didn't know that
they were there, right. I don't know. This finishes up here.
(24:50):
Some of the artwork was good, Okay, this is just
his person's opinion because they went to go visit and
there's pictures of the art from there. Okay. At the
very end, this says many thanks again to Dale for
his wonderful insight. It's learn more about his adventures on
the Maritime Explorer. So I guess the person that wrote
this entry. Their name is Dale, and this is published
in May of twenty nineteen. So Dale, if you're out there,
(25:10):
thank you for your contribution. The next source that we
have here, this is from the Catholic Travel Guide dot com.
This is just a short entry says during the persecution
of Catholics in the early twentieth century, most monasteries, convents,
and churches were closed by the government. Okay, so they
were forcefully closed. I was wrong earlier. Their very existence
(25:31):
would put the occupants under immediate threat of death by
the Mexican soldiers who massacred many during that period. So
it was really that serious, Okay. That this convent and
its inhabitants survived is a bit of a miracle. Maybe
divine intervention, you might say. This continues. The Augustinian nuns
here were a contemplative order. I put this in the
story and did not seeing, which certainly would have helped
(25:54):
to hide their presence. A contemplative order. I look this up,
a contemplative order of nuns. It's nuns who worship through
meditation and silent like they're contemplated, right, So it's meditation, silence,
a lot of that. It's not really like singing, proselytizing,
like doing things out loud. This continues. Yet there were
those who surely knew and chose to remain silent rather
(26:15):
than betrayed the sisters. So even local officials appear to
have ignored them until one chose not to and had
the convent raided. I guess it's not as creepy. They
weren't really just kind of like lurking around and nobody
knew it was. It was like an open secret. People knew,
but they were like, whatever, they don't bother anybody. We're
going to leave them alone. They're doing their own thing.
This says. It was then discovered that several dozen nuns
(26:36):
lived there. They were promptly expelled and the convent was closed.
And then again today it talks about how it's a museum,
wonderful glimpse into the past and how the nuns lived.
And the next horse that we have here the next
link it is a lugadis Duristicos and Mexico dot com.
This is the Museum of Religious Art ex convento, the
(26:59):
santhem and again pictures here. It's a pretty place. I
would go visit this for sure, it says. It talks
about it being a museum. Of course, it says. The
former convent of Santa Monica is a seventeenth century building
modified in later centuries, dominated by the Buebla Baroque style,
which can be seen especially in the facades of the
patio the professas covered with da la vera tile and betatillo,
(27:22):
which are bricks at an angle like Bethata seems. However,
the main facade on eighteen Street is of neoclassical style.
We have any architecture heads out there use tell us
what this means. The museum reconstructs the life of the
nuns through twenty three permanent exhibition rooms and two courtyards,
the professed and the novices. Again more pictures of it here.
(27:43):
They talk about the legend, so again it says, it
is said that the nuns and the women, this is
where we hear some of these like rumors, these alleged stories.
It says, the nuns in women who inhabited this religious
space suffered abuse, rape, confinement, and inhumane punishments in order
to inflict offering related to the love of God or
simply for not following religious norms. So it was either
(28:06):
punishment or penance, right, which I feel like are the
same thing, but one is strictly devoted to like for
the sake of religious enlightenment. I don't know exactly how
to say that, but you get the idea. This continues.
Despite the beauty and history of the former convent of
Santa Monica, the stories hidden within its walls are quite dark.
The legend goes back to the year sixteen oh nine.
(28:28):
Again it said that Ursula Vega opened the house of
confinement for women as a way to reform their behavior. Again,
what we know now was behavior that probably didn't need
to be reformed. They were simply just existing and maybe, yeah,
I don't know. People were like that woman is too loud,
she's too independent, she's too opinionated. Something's wrong with her
center away right, and this says, well, not right, but
(28:50):
that's kind of what the mentality may have been. Then
this continues. However, it also sheltered the order of the
nuns of sant A Monica, and it was doctor Monmouth
Fernandez de Santa Cruz who reform this place in sixteen
seventy nine. The dates were a little fuzzy. Jeff and
I found different dates. I saw this one sixteen seventy nine,
and he saw another one that said at like sixteen
eighty two. So I just rounded it out, even it
(29:12):
out to sixteen eighty around there to provide them with
an equal space, including spaces such as oratories, a new church,
and even cells. Cells or rooms. Cells is a very
specific word. I don't know. This place was closed down
by the government due to allegations of irregularities. It is
said that the nuns and women who inhabited this religious
space suffered again abuse, rape, confinement, in human punishments in order,
(29:35):
you know, for the love of God. In some areas
of the former convent, skeletons of fetuses and even the
skeleton of a woman who may have shown signs of
pregnancy have been found. There's no source for this, there's
now I don't see any link for that, so I'm
not sure how true that is. But this person is
saying that there were bodies, there were remains found there.
(29:57):
Workers and visitors have reported the appearance of a woman
dressed in white in the dark and gloomy corridors of
this facility. So again, lots of legend, lots of stories,
but so far that's just what they are stories, right,
there's no con I haven't seen. We haven't seen any concrete.
It was documented, this is you know, it was in
(30:17):
the news or I want to be very careful about
this because this involves very sensitive topics and if there
are real people that were affected, like you know, you
want to do your due diligence and we're trying here.
But again, it couldn't find anything that said yes, for
sure this happened. There's one that just kind of it's
like a quick promotion like these are the hours of operation,
but it's included here it says, have you ever been
(30:38):
inside an ancient convent? Are you interested in finding out
more about the life of nuns and their secluded environment?
At the Museo de at dere Lejoso, you will have
the chance to experience an extraordinary adventure into the hidden
world of religious art and those who contributed to its existence.
Home to the museum is the ex Convento Santa Monica,
which will amaze you with its baroque decorated entry, its
(30:58):
kitchen cells, and its seventeenth Entry Temple, open Tuesday through
Sunday from ten am till five pm. Good to know
in case you're there. I wonder when this was last
updated because maybe those are still the hours. But this
is gpsmcity dot com. Just a quick promo if you
want to go visit the museum. The next one that
we have here, this is a Lugadi is dot I
(31:21):
n A h dot gob dot MX. And this is
just Museo X Convento the Santa Monica and this is
showing it like on the map. Oh cool. And this
is it has a bunch of like pictures and stuff,
so it's showing pictures of the permanent exhibition collections, the spaces.
This is really neat. And this is just mainly it's
(31:42):
it's a slideshow of pictures of this place. And again
they look really nice. Again, this is Lugats dot I
nah dot gob dot m X and direct links will
be in Patreon. But it it looks really nice. These
tile the tiling is gorgeous on this like courtyard area.
It's very well madeined. You can definitely see like the
architecture styles and how they differ. It looks really really
(32:06):
cool and the last one. This is a very very
long source entry, but it would be worth a read
if you have the time for it. But this really
delves into the depths of this place, and by I
mean literal depth. This is from Bravista Dash liber or
lived l I B E. R dot Org and this
(32:27):
says news and legends surrounding the discovery of the Convent
of Santa Monica. And this is like about the full investigation.
This is by Fordananda Melshore Melcore or how would you
say it in Spanish. I've only heard that pronounced Melcore
and I'm thinking of Tracy Milk melt or Melshore, Tracy
Melshore from drag Race, Canada. Right. But this is by
Fananda And when was this published? I don't see a date.
(32:50):
But this is really cool. It's broken down into cool sections.
So it talks about the search. So this says it
happened on a Friday morning, May eighteenth, nineteen thirty four.
The first to notice the Lisa's arrival where the residents
of eighteen Street about a dozen hendamus gendarmes odmis. I'm
thinking maybe like that's like cops or something, accompanied by
officials who said they were this was translated from me.
(33:13):
It was just Spanish. I think that's why I don't
recognize that word. But accompanied by officials who said there
were representatives of the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Attorney
General's office entered the house marked with the number one
oh three and proceeded to evacuate its inhabitants to conduct
a search inside the home. The adjoining house, marked with
the number one oh one, was also evacuated and searched
throughout that day. There's a quote here. The Convent of
(33:35):
Santa Monica, hidden behind the facades of recently raided houses,
still served as a home for just over twenty Augustinian
recollect nuns. So just over twenty we have a closer
number who not only lived in the most complete and
clandestine seclusion, but also hid in ghostly crips and tunnels
that extended beneath the streets of Puebla. A splendid treasure,
(33:58):
it says, A splendid treasure. Indeed, that says by nightfall,
rumors were already spreading throughout Anchelopolis. The police were replaced
by a troop of army infantrymen who set up roadblocks
and surrounded the entire block. Federal forces were concentrated on
sixteen Avenue, three Norte and five the Mile streets, and
(34:19):
even closed down the church located on the corner of
eighteen Pente, famous and very popular for housing the miraculous
Lord of Wonders. Apparently, it was rumored government agents had
finally discovered what was an open secret in the neighborhood that,
despite the strict laws that then prohibited the existence of
convents and monasteries, Santa Monica, hidden behind the facades of
(34:39):
the recently rated houses, still served as a home for
just over twenty Augustinian recollect nuns, who not only lived
in the most complete and clandestine we read this part seclusion,
but also hid in crypts and goosty tunnels that extended
beneath the streets, beneath the streets of Puebla. Again, a
splendid treasure, it says, that is see now it's creepy again.
(34:59):
I'm not going to read through all the sections, but
like part two, it's titled the Mysterious Treasure, there was
one that I scrolled by that I want to I
want to read Part three, a Mexican Sherlock Holmes, which
I think is the name of the person that led
the investigation. Valente Quintana's first nickname was Elzoro or the Fox,
due to his ingenuity and cunning in investigating and solving
the most intricate criminal cases of his time, including the
(35:21):
assassination of President elect Alvaro Obregon, killed in July nineteen
twenty eight at the hands of the young religious fanatic
Josse de Leonral. He was also in charge of the
investigations that sought to solve the murder of Cuban student
leader Juan Antonio Maya, who was shot in January nineteen
twenty nine while walking through the streets of Mexico City
and the company of his partner, the artist Tina Modotti.
(35:42):
The same year, Quintana would also discover the culprits of
a railway attack intended to kill President Emilio Bortes. And
then there's this is second etching, says Sunday May twenty,
nineteen thirty four. De le forro Josa, representative of the
attorney Emilio Bortes. A company by representative the Treasury Department
and police officers into the hit, premises to proceed with
his closure, proceed with its closure. This almost put an
(36:04):
end to almost two hundred and fifty years of female
convent life. This looks like a like an etching. I
think I'm going to post this picture because it's like
this to describe it to you. It's these two men
in suits looking at it looks like it's a shelf,
but there's like maybe an opening behind it. And there's
this nune just standing like between two shelves like she's
looking out at them. It's black and white. It looks
(36:25):
cool anyway. So this talks about Valenti Quintana. Okay, here's
the section I wanted to read, the Secret Passage. It's
part four. But right before that, it says, given this background,
it is not surprising that Quintana was the one supposedly
responsible for finding the secret door that led to the
mysterious labyrinth of the Convent of Santa Monica and Puebla.
(36:45):
It says the Secret Passage, but there are several versions
of how Valenti Quintana found that secret passage. Some sources
claim that the discovery of the convent did not take
place on May eighteen, nineteen thirty four, but about a
month earlier, on April third, when Inspector Kintana and a
certain Florencio Gonzalez reported to the Attorney General's office the
existence of several convents in Puebla that were still operating
(37:07):
in different parts of the city, as well as the
departure from the country of several valuable objects belonging to
the nation. This report was ratified on May seventeenth before
the Public Ministry Agent assigned to Puebla, and in order
to corroborate the existence of said convents, a series of
searches were carried out, the first of which was carried
out on May eighteenth in the houses marked with the
(37:28):
numbers one oh three and one oh one of Avenida eighteen.
With the results that we already know, it is possible
that Nanta had been sent by the federal government or
commissioned by the Puebla government to discover the exact location
of the illegal monasteries. On the one hand, the existence
of these closures was an open secret in Puebla society.
(37:49):
There were a large number of people who collaborated with
the Augustinian nuns, performing various jobs and tasks for them.
It is said that one of these collaborators, a certain
Antonio si Palacios gained the nuns trust and then betrayed
them and reported the existence of the monastery to the
Buebla Treasury department. Damn, people really did not get church
at the time. I mean, these are country people, and
(38:10):
the church was like inviting France to just come in
and function up. So I mean I can see that
they were like, fuck the church. We hate these people.
We're going to do what we can to get rid
of them. This continues. There is also another version that
says that the informant and person responsible for the closure
of the convent was an antique dealer who used to
buy works of art from the nuns, and who, one day,
(38:32):
furious because the prior rest of the convent had demanded
too high a price for an old painting, got too
drunk in a bar and began to rant against the
nuns and boasts that he knew where the Santa Unica
Convent was. What a messy, messy bitch, Oh my god.
By chance, or perhaps thanks to his legendary cunning, Valentikindana
(38:53):
was present in that tavern. So yes by that drunk
person being there, and after questioning them merchant he managed
to extract from him the location of the convent and
the secret device that allowed access to the passageway. Y'all,
this is intense. I'm going to read this entire thing
on my own time. I'm going to read one more
piece of this, it says. Other versions indicate that Kinana,
(39:15):
commissioned to investigate the possible existence of the reported monastery,
stood outside the church that houses the Lord of Wonders,
where he saw that people were constantly entering, but that
many of them did not come out again, which seemed
suspicious to him. He then decided to enter the temple,
and while snooping around there, he discovered a passage behind
the altar. So it was connected to this other church.
(39:39):
Oh my god, Okay, I know, I said, don't worry.
This is the last paragraph I'm going to read, this says.
It is also claimed that Kinhana did discover the secret
passageway on the day of the search of the house
marked with the number one oh three on eighteenth Street West.
He was looking through a cupboard when he saw a
painting that caught his attention next to a flower pot,
and when he turned around, his trench coat got caught
in the flower pot, where there was a cord that
(40:01):
rang a bell that served as a doorbell to communicate
with the prior rest of the convent. Sister Marie Guadalupe
the drama y'all. She thinking that it was a member
of the family that lived in the house front opened
the door, but when she saw the detective shoes, she
tried to close it and ran to warn her fellow
cloistered women that they had been discovered. This needs to
be a movie. Is has there been a movie about this?
(40:24):
This is wild. I literally just got chills that this
isn't even scary. This is dra ma. I want to
see the limited series. I want to see the movie.
I want to see the documentary. Wow. Okay, then just
to give you the rest of these. Part five is
titled Brides of Christ. Part six is titled Defamatory Versions.
(40:47):
This is probably what talks about those things that happened, says.
I keep saying, I'm not gonna read it anymore so
you but you should come read the rest of this
either way. But this because this is talking specifically about
you know, these the lore and the legends that came
out of this. It is possible that after the discovery
of the Convent of Santa monica, the collective memory of
the city rediscovered, so to speak, traces of a mystical
past that could no longer be reinterpreted except in the
(41:09):
form of exuberant legends. When it was open to the
public now as a museum of sacred art, visitors were
confronted with an incomprehensible world in which the colony and
its Baroque customs seemed to be encapsulated. The pain and
suffering that the Augustinian nuns used to voluntary inflict on
themselves in order to be pleasing in the eyes of God,
for example, or the tradition of the Monicas of burying
(41:33):
deceased nuns in shallow tombs that allowed the smell of
putrefaction of the bodies to escape, were elements that intensified
the already ominous atmosphere that was breathed inside the old
and ruined monastery and gave rise to wild fantasies. Listen,
I always want to be respectful of like people's practices,
(41:53):
especially religious practices, but this is self inflicted punishment, so
to speak, to spiritually lift to yourself, to raise your
yah yah ya. And one of those methods was to
bury bodies in shallow graves to stink up the place.
It is also possible that something this continues, that something
of the unholy past of Santa Monica. After all, that
building had served for several decades as a reformatory for
(42:15):
quote lost and quote runaway women, persisted equally in the
imagination of the people of Puebla, feeding some of the
darkest legends of the convent, for example, that the building
was used since colonial times as a kind of brothel
where the youngest and most beautiful nuns served to satisfy
the base instincts of the priests and hierarchs of the city.
It was also said that until the very moment of
(42:36):
its discovery, the place had served as a reformatory for
girls of bad conduct who were locked up there by
order of their parents. Many of these girls had supposedly
ended up in the convent as punishment for having had
extramarital sexual relations and having become pregnant, and it was
the parents who decided whether the nuns should help the
girl in childbirth, or if they preferred that she be
(42:57):
given some herbal concoction to help her abort. Even more
lurid versions insisted on the discovery of hundreds of skulls
of aborted children, and there was even talk of the
discovery of the wald up skeleton of a woman carrying
a fetus in her womb. Oh my god, this is
the I think, the closest we've gotten to like a
real source. But again, this is saying that these are
(43:19):
just kind of like, these are rumors essentially, But this is, like,
I think, closer to the core of it. It says. More
serious was the fact that for many years these gruesome
and unfounded stories formed part of the information that the
museum guides provided to visitors. Wows, the official museum guides
were perpetuating these stories, which again are unfounded, is what
this is saying. In an amusing chronicle called Santa Monica
(43:41):
of Quebla, the Chilean archaeologist and folklorist Ricardo Latcham Cartwright,
passing through the city during the fifties, recounts the unpleasant
impression that a visit to the convent, by then already
converted into a museum into the art museum, made on him,
partly due to the neglect and deterioration in which the
premises and its collections were found, but above all because
(44:02):
of the childish complacency, in which, according to the Chronicler
the quote, the superstitiousness of the national temperament and the
novelty and the popular imaginations end quote were mixed that
the museum visitors seemed to experience when listening to the
lugubrious stories of ghostly nuns and aboarded children told by
the guides themselves. Yeah, so this guy was like just
(44:23):
kind of over over it how it was being delivered,
And it was a bunch of like as was mentioned
by what was his name Dale earlier, it was a
bunch of gobbledegook. That's the last of the sources that
we have prepared for all here again. You check out
that last and I'm gonna read through this whole thing later.
It's Devista dash liber l I b E r dot
org and it's just news and legends surrounding the discovery
(44:45):
of the Convent of Santa Monica by Ferdananda Melshore. Look
it up. Thank you again, Forerdananda, you welcome back, well friends,
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Thank
(45:08):
you so much to my co ghostwriter and researcher Jeffrey
Doyle for helping me produce this story once again. If
you all have any burning questions, anything that you would
like to know about myself, about Jeff, about both of us,
about Sustal, about podcasting, send your questions in. You can
send them in an email and a DM comments on
(45:28):
social media. You know how to reach me, you know
how to find me, summon me, use owiji board. But
aside from that, you can get any and all updates
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(45:52):
or my website sustalpodcast dot com and using the official
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(46:13):
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(46:35):
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(46:58):
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(47:19):
just posted something about a really fun interview that's coming up,
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(47:41):
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man nermal Core. Thank you all so so much for
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(48:02):
in the next one and until then, not there Sustairs. Bye.
Hey, girlfriends, it's me Adrian or Aiden. Either way, I
am still your host and you are still listening to
or watching Soustal, the podcast of paranormal folklore from Latin
American and Hispanic cultures. Yes, you heard me right. This
is another video episode. If you are signed up on Patreon,
then you get episodes early and ad free, and if
(00:46):
you are a best cool friend, then you also have
access to this video episode. It's just me here and
my little dungeon. There's my little ghosty over here. Got
the lights going on and you can see my horns
in their full glory. So thank you for being here
once again. And if this is your first time to
the show, thank you for pulling up grab a Rosarie.
It's not going to help you here, but it might
(01:09):
make you feel better. I'm kidding, girlfriends, I am recording
this pretty late at night, so I'm trying to I'm trying.
I'm being very honest here with you, and I'm trying
to keep the energy up. But it is about to
be ten, which is my bedtime. But things have been hectic.
I put the heck in hectic, so this was my
(01:29):
this was my chance tonight to record this episode. And
stay on schedule so that I'm not scrambling literally at
the last minute to post this up. Thank you for
your patience and for showing me grace and kindness as
I push through and muster up all the energy, any
energy that I have left me for today. And also
not only that, but to you all know I've said
(01:51):
this many times. I do not record or edit at night.
But here we are. I'm trying not to like imagine
things in my proof, so you and me we're locked
in together. If you see anything, do not tell me again.
This is my ghost friend right here. That is the
only ghost allowed in this room, in this apartment, to
be honest. So anyway, not too many updates. I do
(02:13):
have a favor to ask you. I put a call
out on social media and on Patreon. I want to
do an episode and probably a video to go with it,
basically a sustal Q and a to get to know
me a little better. I know that I pour my
heart out on this show constantly, but if you would
like to get to know me a little bit more,
and to officially introduce you all to my ghost writer, Jeff.
(02:36):
You'll have heard me mention Jeff many times, but I
do want to give you the opportunity to get to
know him better because now he is officially part of SUSTAL.
He is helping me research and write these stories. And yeah,
if you all have any questions about him, us as
a unit, like a working unit here on SUSTAL, us
as a couple, we've been together for ten years this year. Now,
(02:58):
questions for me individually, just any questions that you have
about Sustal, about us, please feel free to send them in.
I don't think you all would get too wild, but honestly,
you've heard the things that I've said on this show,
the things that I've shared. So what isn't left field
or what really truly would be pushing that boundary? Why
don't you test it? You send me an email a
(03:22):
DM if you find the post on social media commented,
I'll be posting it on stories again. We're going to
be accepting a few more questions. We have some great
ones already, but I want to give everybody the opportunity.
So I was thinking, let me say this on the
show itself so that everybody can hear it. So again,
we'll be doing a SUSTO Q and A which I'm
thinking about making it an episode, of course, available to everybody,
(03:43):
and then the video version kind of like maybe vlog
style interview. I don't know. It'll be something with Jeff
and I so that you all again can get to
know me a little bit better, maybe if you'd like to,
and to introduce you officially to Jeff. I keep motioning
over here. This is Jeff right here. Those little ghost
pill up that's him, but not really, just pretend that
(04:03):
he's here. So yeah, just wanted to put that out
there because I'm very excited about the idea of doing that.
It is going to happen, but I'm very excited about
making it happen. Speaking of making things happen, let's make
this episode happen. Before we do, I do want to
give a kind of warning. Listener discretion advised. Please always
take care of yourselves if you feel like you need
to dip. This episode is not for you. I obviously
(04:24):
completely understand, but I do want to give a heads
up so it doesn't catch you off guard that in
this episode there are mentions of rape, abuse and violence
against women. So again, listener discretion advised. And with that
being said, let's go ahead and jump into today's episode,
which is the story of the ex Convento the Santa Monica.
(05:00):
In the heart of Pueblo, Mexico. Down an old cobblestone street,
stands an unassuming building with high stone walls and heavy
wooden doors. By day it is a museum filled with
sacred paintings, gilded crosses, and artifacts of faith. But by night,
(05:22):
something else lingers, something that never left. For centuries. Those
walls held secrets. The cries of the tormented echo through
the cold corridors. Shadows move where no one should be,
and if you listen just closely enough, you might hear
(05:42):
the whispered prayer of a long dead nun, still begging
for salvation. This is the story of the ex Gunvento
the Santa Monica. Long before it became a convent, the
building was something far darker. In sixteen, a wealthy and
devout woman named Dona Ursula de Vega established it as
(06:06):
a house of confinement for women deemed unfit for society. Here,
noble families sent their disobedient daughters, unwonted wives, and wayward
young women to be reformed. Some had committed crimes, others
had simply spoken too freely loved the wrong person, or
(06:28):
disobeyed their fathers or patriarchs of the home. Once inside,
they were locked away, forced into silence and prayer, their
bodies and souls broken, until they were deemed pure enough
to return to the world. If they were ever allowed
to leave at all. Murmurs of the reformatory's goings on
(06:51):
spread among the locals, Tales of women who entered and
were never seen again, of cries in the night of
graves ug beneath the floors. Around sixteen eighty the house
was repurposed into a convent by doctor Manuel Fernandez de
Santa Cruz, and the past was buried away, but the
(07:12):
walls never forget. Now an Augustinian recollect convent, Santa Monica
became a place of prayer and devotion. The nuns lived
in strict seclusion, sworn to a lifetime of silence and sacrifice.
To the outside world. It was a sanctuary, but inside
(07:35):
something was rotting. Young women, many against their will, were
forced into holy vows by their families. Some had known
love before, only to have it ripped away and replaced
with cold stone walls. Some dared to no pleasure, a
carnal sin, and paid the price. The convent's leaders, us
(08:00):
with preserving purity, took their roles to terrifying extremes. Nuns
who spoke out were punished, locked away in dark isolation cells,
where some went mad. Those who showed weakness in their
faith were given painful penances, from wearing spiked chains beneath
their habits to whipping themselves bloody in the name of redemption.
(08:25):
Some still driven to despair, dyed by suicide, hanging from
the rafters of their tiny chambers, or flinging themselves from
the convent's highest tower. And yet these were not the
worst of the convin's sins. In eighteen fifty seven, the
Mexican government enacted the Liberal Reform laws, ordering the closure
(08:49):
of all religious institutions. The nuns should have left, but
they didn't. Instead, they sealed themselves inside, vanishing from the world,
surviving in silence, believing that as long as they prayed,
as long as they remained faithful, God would protect them.
(09:11):
At first, the people of Puebla helped them, smuggling in food, medicine,
and other supplies, but as the years stretched into decades,
the outside world began to forget them. The convent became
an echo a faint memory. The Augustinian nuns were a
(09:32):
contemplative order and did not sing, and in that silence,
monsters flourished and the women suffered. One of the nuns
was only sixteen when she arrived before the convent went
into isolation, sent by her father to atone for a
sin she never committed. The young nun dreamed of the
(09:54):
world outside of color and warmth and laughter, but inside
Santa Monica, the only warmth came from the candle flames
at the altar. One night, the head mistress sent for her.
A visitor had arrived, a priest who would visit the
convent in secret. Dressed in fine black robes, his face
(10:18):
hidden by the flickering light. She was led into a
candlelit chamber and told to confess. The priest listened, and
instead of offering absolution, his hand caressed her wrist. She
could not protest. She was conditioned to submit to church leaders,
(10:40):
no matter their request. In her silence, the priest went
beyond simply touching her wrist. For years he came to
the convent under the cover of darkness. The young nun
was not the only one who suffered his advances, which
betrayed his vows and destroyed the minds and bodies of
(11:00):
the women in the convent. When the young nun's belly
began to swell, the other nuns turned the other cheek,
whispering prayers instead of offering solace. There was no pity
in their eyes, only fear. A child born within those
walls could not be allowed. One night, she was led
(11:23):
away by an elder sister. Not all of the women
who suffered in the convent were victims. Some were monsters
in their own right. The elder sister was one of
those monsters, a woman who believed that suffering was the
path to salvation. When the convent fell into darkness, she
(11:44):
did not despair. She thrived. She punished the weak, She
silenced the disobedient, And when the young nun came to
her with a belly too large to hide in her tunic,
the elder sister led her to the well behind them convent.
No one claims to know what happened, but they all
(12:05):
heard the hollow splash, and the young nun never returned.
By May nineteen thirty four, the government raided the convent,
expecting to find an abandoned ruin. Instead, they found nuns
who had never set foot outside. Women so pale they
(12:25):
looked like ghosts, their fingers curled and gnarled from decades
of clutching rosaries. And beneath the floors they found bones.
The first were small, infant bones, twisted and frail. Some
were buried beneath the chapel, others hidden in the thick
(12:47):
stone walls. Their skulls were cracked, as if they had
not simply been laid to rest, but discarded. Then they
found the women. Some had been walled up alive, skeletons
frozen in the fetal position, their bones pressing against the
inside of the bricks, as if they had clawed at
(13:09):
the stone until their final breath escaped their lungs. Others
bore signs of violence, fractured skulls, shattered ribs, broken jaws.
Some had chains still wrapped around their wrists and ankles,
their bones locked in eternal pennance. The most disturbing were
(13:29):
the remains of pregnant women. Their bodies showed clear evidence
of abuse. Some still had iron spikes pressed into their bones,
a cruel form of atonement meant to purify their sins.
In a single chamber, they found dozens the walls were
painted a rust color, not with frescoes, but with old,
(13:53):
dried blood. Somewhere beneath the convent, hidden behind a stone
wall their there is a room that no one speaks of.
It was not meant for prayer or penance, rather for
something sinister, between the nuns who refused to obey and
the infants who were never meant to live. No one
(14:15):
knows how many bodies lie beneath the convent. No records
exist of how many were found. The officials who oversaw
the investigation kept silent. Today, the Exgunvento de Santa Monica
is a religious art museum, filled with relics of faith,
golden altars, and portraits of nuns whose faces remain eerily lifelike,
(14:39):
but something else remains. Visitors report disembodied voices in the corridors,
murmuring prayers in an empty chapel. Some say they have
felt cold hands brushed against their shoulders, or heard the
quiet sobs of the many women trapped between worlds. Among
these spirits is a figure and a blome, blood stained habit,
(15:01):
sometimes seen near the well, rocking back and forth, muttering
prayers that no one can understand. Some see a young
nun that still walks the halls, her ghostly form clutching
her stomach, singing lullabies to the child she was never
allowed to hold. The most terrifying legend speaks of a
(15:24):
crying nun, a spectral figure seen standing at a window,
her veil soaked in blood. Some say she was a
young woman forced into the convent who died by suicide
rather than bear the shame of her alleged sin. Visitors
to the museum sometimes report hearing a soft scratching sound
(15:45):
near the floorboards of the old dormitory. Some say it
is just the wood settling, others believe it is the unborn,
still trying to claw their way into this world. So
if you ever find yourself and Puebla standing before the
threshold of the ex Convento the Santa Monica, ask yourself,
(16:07):
do you dare step inside? Welcome back, cool friends. Okay,
that one. I'm glad I gave that listener discretion kind
(16:29):
of warning. That one was pretty intense. And this is
a real place. These stories, these legends, they there stories
and legends. So many of the things in this story
they're tall tales, they're rumors, so they're like they're posted
out there on the internet. Obviously we're not just gonna
I mean, yes, sometimes we write stories, right, we make
(16:51):
up stories. But this is one of those places that
exists and it has this really like lurid kind of
mysterious history, and people, you know, when Ith and I'm like,
you know, added their bits and pieces to it. I
don't know. It's one of those where there's a lot
of legend around it, and it's basically what I'm trying
to say is it's it's unfounded. Many, if not all,
(17:12):
of these things have not been proven to be true.
So it's one of those things that just kind of
took a life of its own. Some of these things
are true, however, So a note here from Jeff. He
wrote some historical background about the liberal reform laws that
led to the convent going secret. So this actually did happen.
This was a place that it was a reformatory. So
(17:33):
this is a place where they sent quote unsavory women
to go basically to go get fixed, quote right, places
that we know now existed but were just terrible places
where people were sent away. People were discarded basically for
whatever reason, from like real mental health issues to simply
being inconvenient to somebody else, or being considered inconvenient because
(17:57):
they weren't actually but anyway, So this continues. The Catholic
Church in Mexico had supported the French invasion of Mexico
since they believed that it would bring the country closer
to traditional Catholicism as opposed to blending of Catholicism and
indigenous practices that was happening in the country. Surprise, surprise,
the church was like, yes, please, more colonization, bring it
(18:20):
on right, instead of allowing this like folk Catholicism as
I think we have learned to call it, letting that
happen and like bloom and like be its own thing,
they were like, nope, no room for that. Christianity Catholicism
only so French people come over here and help us
out right. So this continues. So after supporting the first
French invasion in the eighteen thirties and the overthrow of
(18:41):
the dictator Santa Ana, liberals in Mexico had a strong reaction.
They crafted a constitution that put strict rules on churches
and claimed property. It was a very anti Catholic time
in the country, so many churches went into hiding. This
convent is one of the ones that went into hiding.
Here's more information about a lot of f or the
liberal reform laws, and this is a Wikipedia link. So
(19:04):
these reform laws that sent essentially, they sent these churches
into hiding. They took power away from the churches, I think,
essentially what was happening. It's known or this era is
known as Latiforma, and this Wiki entry says in the
history of Mexico, Latiforma or the reform or reform laws,
refers to a pivotal set of laws, including a new constitution,
(19:25):
that were enacted in the Second Federal Republic of Mexico
during the eighteen fifties after the Plan of Autla overthrew
the dictatorship of Santa Ana. They were intended as modernizing
measures social, political, and economic, aimed at undermining the traditional
power of the Catholic Church and the army. I'm into
these laws already, these reform laws. The reforms sought separation
(19:46):
of church and state, equality before the law and economic development.
These anti clerical laws were enacted in the Second Mexican
Republic between eighteen fifty five and eighteen sixty three, during
the governments of Juan Alvarez, Ignacio Gomonfort, and Benito Juatz.
The laws also limited the ability of Catholic Church and
Indigenous communities from collectively holding land. Okay, pause, give the
(20:10):
indigenous communities their land. What the fuck are you talking about? Okay?
So then this says the Liberal government sought the revenues
from the distalment of church property, which could fund the
civil war against Mexican Conservatives and to broaden the base
of property ownership in Mexico and encouraging private enterprise. Several
of them were raised to constitutional status by the Constituent
(20:31):
Congress that drafted the Liberal Constitution of eighteen fifty seven.
Although the laws had a major impact on the Catholic
Church in Mexico, liberal proponents were not opposed to the
church as a spiritual institution, but rather saw a secular
state and a society not dominated by religion. So I
feel like generally I agree with that. Again, I have
(20:52):
some hesitancy with the taking the land from indigenous communities,
but it seems like there I'm not trying to justify this,
but what I getting from that is that they were
just like, nope, clean slate, everybody's equal. It doesn't matter
who you are. But then that doesn't that's not actually
equal then, because they're stealing this land from indigenous people anyway.
So you get the idea. These reform laws were to
(21:14):
take power from the church, and so that's why these
churches had to go into hiding, right. You know, people
you were kind of turning their backs on the church
or maybe like being vehemently against it, and so they
were like, Okay, we gotta we've got to tone it down,
tone down the Catholicism, you know what I mean. So
we have a couple links here that we're going to
go through. This first one is from a adventures dot
(21:36):
abroad or adventures dash abroad dot com. It's a blog
entry and it's just generally about Buebla, Mexico. Again, all
of these links, the direct links will be in these
houst to Google docs on Patreon, but on Adventures Abroad,
they're again just talking about Bubbla, Mexico. It's kind of
like the history of Buebla and let's see a little
bit about it, says As noted in the introduction, Buebla
is the only major Mexican city that was actually founded
(21:59):
by the Spanish and not by the indigenous peoples already
on site. Well, they didn't have to found it, they
were already there, Okay. Anyway, it says by fifteen thirty
it was apparent that Mexico City was going to be
the capital and most important city in New Spain, as
the Spanish named what is now Mexico and huge swaths
of western United States. Vera Cruz was the Atlantic port
(22:19):
that was the major entry and exit point for the colony.
Buebla was founded in fifteen thirty one as a stopping
point on the main road connecting Veracruz and Mexico City.
As is often the case with cities founded by a
religious order, as was Buebla, there is a certain amount
of gobbledegooch, that's what it says here, associated with why
it was founded where it was. In Buebla's case, the
(22:40):
Mexico City bishops supposedly had a dream of angels drawing
out the outline of a city in a place of
rivers and woods. He marched his minions out into the country,
and when they found a place suitable for a new
city because it had water and lumber, he knew this
must be the place. Thus the original name Buebla de
Los Angeles or City of Angels. Thankfully, it eventually got
(23:02):
shortened into just Buebla one los Angeles in North America.
Is enough who wrote this this is funny? Well, as
I scrolled to the bottom, there are also pictures here
of well many places in Buebla. But they also talk
about the Museo the Santa Monica or Museo the Arete Reljoso,
(23:23):
the Santa Monica, And here it says. In eighteen fifty seven,
Mexico adopted a new constitution that effectively nationalized all church
property and ended its role as a political player, always
on the side of conservative forces in the back and
forth of Mexican politics since independence in eighteen twenty one. However,
the Church did not stop its meddling and actively supported
the two French attempts to take over Mexico. Pretends to
(23:45):
be shocked. Eventually, most Mexicans were fed up, and they
turned on the church and treated priests and nuns as
subversive enemies. The shoe was now on the other foot,
and the clergy were forced to go into hiding. Graham Greens.
The Power and the is based on one such priest
in the province of Tabasco and is well worth reading
(24:05):
if you want to know more about the long and
shaky relationship between church and state in Mexico. This continues,
believe it or not, until nineteen thirty four. The Museo
de Santa Monica was a secret convent where nuns lived
behind closed walls, going about their business unbeknownst to outside
authorities for decades. Today it is the repository of a
large number of religious artworks, as well as an example
(24:27):
of how the nuns led their lives without anyone knowing
they were there. That's really creepy, to be honest. I mean,
like there's nothing inherently creepy about it. They were just people, right,
but that they were living in secret within the city,
and like they just went unnoticed for that long is
It's just weird to me that they were just there.
But it wouldn't be weird because you didn't know that
they were there, right. I don't know. This finishes up here.
(24:50):
Some of the artwork was good, Okay, this is just
his person's opinion because they went to go visit and
there's pictures of the art from there. Okay. At the
very end, this says many thanks again to Dale for
his wonderful insight. It's learn more about his adventures on
the Maritime Explorer. So I guess the person that wrote
this entry. Their name is Dale, and this is published
in May of twenty nineteen. So Dale, if you're out there,
(25:10):
thank you for your contribution. The next source that we
have here, this is from the Catholic Travel Guide dot com.
This is just a short entry says during the persecution
of Catholics in the early twentieth century, most monasteries, convents,
and churches were closed by the government. Okay, so they
were forcefully closed. I was wrong earlier. Their very existence
(25:31):
would put the occupants under immediate threat of death by
the Mexican soldiers who massacred many during that period. So
it was really that serious, Okay. That this convent and
its inhabitants survived is a bit of a miracle. Maybe
divine intervention, you might say. This continues. The Augustinian nuns
here were a contemplative order. I put this in the
story and did not seeing, which certainly would have helped
(25:54):
to hide their presence. A contemplative order. I look this up,
a contemplative order of nuns. It's nuns who worship through
meditation and silent like they're contemplated, right, So it's meditation, silence,
a lot of that. It's not really like singing, proselytizing,
like doing things out loud. This continues. Yet there were
those who surely knew and chose to remain silent rather
(26:15):
than betrayed the sisters. So even local officials appear to
have ignored them until one chose not to and had
the convent raided. I guess it's not as creepy. They
weren't really just kind of like lurking around and nobody
knew it was. It was like an open secret. People knew,
but they were like, whatever, they don't bother anybody. We're
going to leave them alone. They're doing their own thing.
This says. It was then discovered that several dozen nuns
(26:36):
lived there. They were promptly expelled and the convent was closed.
And then again today it talks about how it's a museum,
wonderful glimpse into the past and how the nuns lived.
And the next horse that we have here the next
link it is a lugadis Duristicos and Mexico dot com.
This is the Museum of Religious Art ex convento, the
(26:59):
santhem and again pictures here. It's a pretty place. I
would go visit this for sure, it says. It talks
about it being a museum. Of course, it says. The
former convent of Santa Monica is a seventeenth century building
modified in later centuries, dominated by the Buebla Baroque style,
which can be seen especially in the facades of the
patio the professas covered with da la vera tile and betatillo,
(27:22):
which are bricks at an angle like Bethata seems. However,
the main facade on eighteen Street is of neoclassical style.
We have any architecture heads out there use tell us
what this means. The museum reconstructs the life of the
nuns through twenty three permanent exhibition rooms and two courtyards,
the professed and the novices. Again more pictures of it here.
(27:43):
They talk about the legend, so again it says, it
is said that the nuns and the women, this is
where we hear some of these like rumors, these alleged stories.
It says, the nuns in women who inhabited this religious
space suffered abuse, rape, confinement, and inhumane punishments in order
to inflict offering related to the love of God or
simply for not following religious norms. So it was either
(28:06):
punishment or penance, right, which I feel like are the
same thing, but one is strictly devoted to like for
the sake of religious enlightenment. I don't know exactly how
to say that, but you get the idea. This continues.
Despite the beauty and history of the former convent of
Santa Monica, the stories hidden within its walls are quite dark.
The legend goes back to the year sixteen oh nine.
(28:28):
Again it said that Ursula Vega opened the house of
confinement for women as a way to reform their behavior. Again,
what we know now was behavior that probably didn't need
to be reformed. They were simply just existing and maybe, yeah,
I don't know. People were like that woman is too loud,
she's too independent, she's too opinionated. Something's wrong with her
center away right, and this says, well, not right, but
(28:50):
that's kind of what the mentality may have been. Then
this continues. However, it also sheltered the order of the
nuns of sant A Monica, and it was doctor Monmouth
Fernandez de Santa Cruz who reform this place in sixteen
seventy nine. The dates were a little fuzzy. Jeff and
I found different dates. I saw this one sixteen seventy nine,
and he saw another one that said at like sixteen
eighty two. So I just rounded it out, even it
(29:12):
out to sixteen eighty around there to provide them with
an equal space, including spaces such as oratories, a new church,
and even cells. Cells or rooms. Cells is a very
specific word. I don't know. This place was closed down
by the government due to allegations of irregularities. It is
said that the nuns and women who inhabited this religious
space suffered again abuse, rape, confinement, in human punishments in order,
(29:35):
you know, for the love of God. In some areas
of the former convent, skeletons of fetuses and even the
skeleton of a woman who may have shown signs of
pregnancy have been found. There's no source for this, there's
now I don't see any link for that, so I'm
not sure how true that is. But this person is
saying that there were bodies, there were remains found there.
(29:57):
Workers and visitors have reported the appearance of a woman
dressed in white in the dark and gloomy corridors of
this facility. So again, lots of legend, lots of stories,
but so far that's just what they are stories, right,
there's no con I haven't seen. We haven't seen any concrete.
It was documented, this is you know, it was in
(30:17):
the news or I want to be very careful about
this because this involves very sensitive topics and if there
are real people that were affected, like you know, you
want to do your due diligence and we're trying here.
But again, it couldn't find anything that said yes, for
sure this happened. There's one that just kind of it's
like a quick promotion like these are the hours of operation,
but it's included here it says, have you ever been
(30:38):
inside an ancient convent? Are you interested in finding out
more about the life of nuns and their secluded environment?
At the Museo de at dere Lejoso, you will have
the chance to experience an extraordinary adventure into the hidden
world of religious art and those who contributed to its existence.
Home to the museum is the ex Convento Santa Monica,
which will amaze you with its baroque decorated entry, its
(30:58):
kitchen cells, and its seventeenth Entry Temple, open Tuesday through
Sunday from ten am till five pm. Good to know
in case you're there. I wonder when this was last
updated because maybe those are still the hours. But this
is gpsmcity dot com. Just a quick promo if you
want to go visit the museum. The next one that
we have here, this is a Lugadi is dot I
(31:21):
n A h dot gob dot MX. And this is
just Museo X Convento the Santa Monica and this is
showing it like on the map. Oh cool. And this
is it has a bunch of like pictures and stuff,
so it's showing pictures of the permanent exhibition collections, the spaces.
This is really neat. And this is just mainly it's
(31:42):
it's a slideshow of pictures of this place. And again
they look really nice. Again, this is Lugats dot I
nah dot gob dot m X and direct links will
be in Patreon. But it it looks really nice. These
tile the tiling is gorgeous on this like courtyard area.
It's very well madeined. You can definitely see like the
architecture styles and how they differ. It looks really really
(32:06):
cool and the last one. This is a very very
long source entry, but it would be worth a read
if you have the time for it. But this really
delves into the depths of this place, and by I
mean literal depth. This is from Bravista Dash liber or
lived l I B E. R dot Org and this
(32:27):
says news and legends surrounding the discovery of the Convent
of Santa Monica. And this is like about the full investigation.
This is by Fordananda Melshore Melcore or how would you
say it in Spanish. I've only heard that pronounced Melcore
and I'm thinking of Tracy Milk melt or Melshore, Tracy
Melshore from drag Race, Canada. Right. But this is by
Fananda And when was this published? I don't see a date.
(32:50):
But this is really cool. It's broken down into cool sections.
So it talks about the search. So this says it
happened on a Friday morning, May eighteenth, nineteen thirty four.
The first to notice the Lisa's arrival where the residents
of eighteen Street about a dozen hendamus gendarmes odmis. I'm
thinking maybe like that's like cops or something, accompanied by
officials who said they were this was translated from me.
(33:13):
It was just Spanish. I think that's why I don't
recognize that word. But accompanied by officials who said there
were representatives of the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Attorney
General's office entered the house marked with the number one
oh three and proceeded to evacuate its inhabitants to conduct
a search inside the home. The adjoining house, marked with
the number one oh one, was also evacuated and searched
throughout that day. There's a quote here. The Convent of
(33:35):
Santa Monica, hidden behind the facades of recently raided houses,
still served as a home for just over twenty Augustinian
recollect nuns. So just over twenty we have a closer
number who not only lived in the most complete and
clandestine seclusion, but also hid in ghostly crips and tunnels
that extended beneath the streets of Puebla. A splendid treasure,
(33:58):
it says, A splendid treasure. Indeed, that says by nightfall,
rumors were already spreading throughout Anchelopolis. The police were replaced
by a troop of army infantrymen who set up roadblocks
and surrounded the entire block. Federal forces were concentrated on
sixteen Avenue, three Norte and five the Mile streets, and
(34:19):
even closed down the church located on the corner of
eighteen Pente, famous and very popular for housing the miraculous
Lord of Wonders. Apparently, it was rumored government agents had
finally discovered what was an open secret in the neighborhood that,
despite the strict laws that then prohibited the existence of
convents and monasteries, Santa Monica, hidden behind the facades of
(34:39):
the recently rated houses, still served as a home for
just over twenty Augustinian recollect nuns, who not only lived
in the most complete and clandestine we read this part seclusion,
but also hid in crypts and goosty tunnels that extended
beneath the streets, beneath the streets of Puebla. Again, a
splendid treasure, it says, that is see now it's creepy again.
(34:59):
I'm not going to read through all the sections, but
like part two, it's titled the Mysterious Treasure, there was
one that I scrolled by that I want to I
want to read Part three, a Mexican Sherlock Holmes, which
I think is the name of the person that led
the investigation. Valente Quintana's first nickname was Elzoro or the Fox,
due to his ingenuity and cunning in investigating and solving
the most intricate criminal cases of his time, including the
(35:21):
assassination of President elect Alvaro Obregon, killed in July nineteen
twenty eight at the hands of the young religious fanatic
Josse de Leonral. He was also in charge of the
investigations that sought to solve the murder of Cuban student
leader Juan Antonio Maya, who was shot in January nineteen
twenty nine while walking through the streets of Mexico City
and the company of his partner, the artist Tina Modotti.
(35:42):
The same year, Quintana would also discover the culprits of
a railway attack intended to kill President Emilio Bortes. And
then there's this is second etching, says Sunday May twenty,
nineteen thirty four. De le forro Josa, representative of the
attorney Emilio Bortes. A company by representative the Treasury Department
and police officers into the hit, premises to proceed with
his closure, proceed with its closure. This almost put an
(36:04):
end to almost two hundred and fifty years of female
convent life. This looks like a like an etching. I
think I'm going to post this picture because it's like
this to describe it to you. It's these two men
in suits looking at it looks like it's a shelf,
but there's like maybe an opening behind it. And there's
this nune just standing like between two shelves like she's
looking out at them. It's black and white. It looks
(36:25):
cool anyway. So this talks about Valenti Quintana. Okay, here's
the section I wanted to read, the Secret Passage. It's
part four. But right before that, it says, given this background,
it is not surprising that Quintana was the one supposedly
responsible for finding the secret door that led to the
mysterious labyrinth of the Convent of Santa Monica and Puebla.
(36:45):
It says the Secret Passage, but there are several versions
of how Valenti Quintana found that secret passage. Some sources
claim that the discovery of the convent did not take
place on May eighteen, nineteen thirty four, but about a
month earlier, on April third, when Inspector Kintana and a
certain Florencio Gonzalez reported to the Attorney General's office the
existence of several convents in Puebla that were still operating
(37:07):
in different parts of the city, as well as the
departure from the country of several valuable objects belonging to
the nation. This report was ratified on May seventeenth before
the Public Ministry Agent assigned to Puebla, and in order
to corroborate the existence of said convents, a series of
searches were carried out, the first of which was carried
out on May eighteenth in the houses marked with the
(37:28):
numbers one oh three and one oh one of Avenida eighteen.
With the results that we already know, it is possible
that Nanta had been sent by the federal government or
commissioned by the Puebla government to discover the exact location
of the illegal monasteries. On the one hand, the existence
of these closures was an open secret in Puebla society.
(37:49):
There were a large number of people who collaborated with
the Augustinian nuns, performing various jobs and tasks for them.
It is said that one of these collaborators, a certain
Antonio si Palacios gained the nuns trust and then betrayed
them and reported the existence of the monastery to the
Buebla Treasury department. Damn, people really did not get church
at the time. I mean, these are country people, and
(38:10):
the church was like inviting France to just come in
and function up. So I mean I can see that
they were like, fuck the church. We hate these people.
We're going to do what we can to get rid
of them. This continues. There is also another version that
says that the informant and person responsible for the closure
of the convent was an antique dealer who used to
buy works of art from the nuns, and who, one day,
(38:32):
furious because the prior rest of the convent had demanded
too high a price for an old painting, got too
drunk in a bar and began to rant against the
nuns and boasts that he knew where the Santa Unica
Convent was. What a messy, messy bitch, Oh my god.
By chance, or perhaps thanks to his legendary cunning, Valentikindana
(38:53):
was present in that tavern. So yes by that drunk
person being there, and after questioning them merchant he managed
to extract from him the location of the convent and
the secret device that allowed access to the passageway. Y'all,
this is intense. I'm going to read this entire thing
on my own time. I'm going to read one more
piece of this, it says. Other versions indicate that Kinana,
(39:15):
commissioned to investigate the possible existence of the reported monastery,
stood outside the church that houses the Lord of Wonders,
where he saw that people were constantly entering, but that
many of them did not come out again, which seemed
suspicious to him. He then decided to enter the temple,
and while snooping around there, he discovered a passage behind
the altar. So it was connected to this other church.
(39:39):
Oh my god, Okay, I know, I said, don't worry.
This is the last paragraph I'm going to read, this says.
It is also claimed that Kinhana did discover the secret
passageway on the day of the search of the house
marked with the number one oh three on eighteenth Street West.
He was looking through a cupboard when he saw a
painting that caught his attention next to a flower pot,
and when he turned around, his trench coat got caught
in the flower pot, where there was a cord that
(40:01):
rang a bell that served as a doorbell to communicate
with the prior rest of the convent. Sister Marie Guadalupe
the drama y'all. She thinking that it was a member
of the family that lived in the house front opened
the door, but when she saw the detective shoes, she
tried to close it and ran to warn her fellow
cloistered women that they had been discovered. This needs to
be a movie. Is has there been a movie about this?
(40:24):
This is wild. I literally just got chills that this
isn't even scary. This is dra ma. I want to
see the limited series. I want to see the movie.
I want to see the documentary. Wow. Okay, then just
to give you the rest of these. Part five is
titled Brides of Christ. Part six is titled Defamatory Versions.
(40:47):
This is probably what talks about those things that happened, says.
I keep saying, I'm not gonna read it anymore so
you but you should come read the rest of this
either way. But this because this is talking specifically about
you know, these the lore and the legends that came
out of this. It is possible that after the discovery
of the Convent of Santa monica, the collective memory of
the city rediscovered, so to speak, traces of a mystical
past that could no longer be reinterpreted except in the
(41:09):
form of exuberant legends. When it was open to the
public now as a museum of sacred art, visitors were
confronted with an incomprehensible world in which the colony and
its Baroque customs seemed to be encapsulated. The pain and
suffering that the Augustinian nuns used to voluntary inflict on
themselves in order to be pleasing in the eyes of God,
for example, or the tradition of the Monicas of burying
(41:33):
deceased nuns in shallow tombs that allowed the smell of
putrefaction of the bodies to escape, were elements that intensified
the already ominous atmosphere that was breathed inside the old
and ruined monastery and gave rise to wild fantasies. Listen,
I always want to be respectful of like people's practices,
(41:53):
especially religious practices, but this is self inflicted punishment, so
to speak, to spiritually lift to yourself, to raise your
yah yah ya. And one of those methods was to
bury bodies in shallow graves to stink up the place.
It is also possible that something this continues, that something
of the unholy past of Santa Monica. After all, that
building had served for several decades as a reformatory for
(42:15):
quote lost and quote runaway women, persisted equally in the
imagination of the people of Puebla, feeding some of the
darkest legends of the convent, for example, that the building
was used since colonial times as a kind of brothel
where the youngest and most beautiful nuns served to satisfy
the base instincts of the priests and hierarchs of the city.
It was also said that until the very moment of
(42:36):
its discovery, the place had served as a reformatory for
girls of bad conduct who were locked up there by
order of their parents. Many of these girls had supposedly
ended up in the convent as punishment for having had
extramarital sexual relations and having become pregnant, and it was
the parents who decided whether the nuns should help the
girl in childbirth, or if they preferred that she be
(42:57):
given some herbal concoction to help her abort. Even more
lurid versions insisted on the discovery of hundreds of skulls
of aborted children, and there was even talk of the
discovery of the wald up skeleton of a woman carrying
a fetus in her womb. Oh my god, this is
the I think, the closest we've gotten to like a
real source. But again, this is saying that these are
(43:19):
just kind of like, these are rumors essentially, But this is, like,
I think, closer to the core of it. It says. More
serious was the fact that for many years these gruesome
and unfounded stories formed part of the information that the
museum guides provided to visitors. Wows, the official museum guides
were perpetuating these stories, which again are unfounded, is what
this is saying. In an amusing chronicle called Santa Monica
(43:41):
of Quebla, the Chilean archaeologist and folklorist Ricardo Latcham Cartwright,
passing through the city during the fifties, recounts the unpleasant
impression that a visit to the convent, by then already
converted into a museum into the art museum, made on him,
partly due to the neglect and deterioration in which the
premises and its collections were found, but above all because
(44:02):
of the childish complacency, in which, according to the Chronicler
the quote, the superstitiousness of the national temperament and the
novelty and the popular imaginations end quote were mixed that
the museum visitors seemed to experience when listening to the
lugubrious stories of ghostly nuns and aboarded children told by
the guides themselves. Yeah, so this guy was like just
(44:23):
kind of over over it how it was being delivered,
And it was a bunch of like as was mentioned
by what was his name Dale earlier, it was a
bunch of gobbledegook. That's the last of the sources that
we have prepared for all here again. You check out
that last and I'm gonna read through this whole thing later.
It's Devista dash liber l I b E r dot
org and it's just news and legends surrounding the discovery
(44:45):
of the Convent of Santa Monica by Ferdananda Melshore. Look
it up. Thank you again, Forerdananda, you welcome back, well friends,
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Thank
(45:08):
you so much to my co ghostwriter and researcher Jeffrey
Doyle for helping me produce this story once again. If
you all have any burning questions, anything that you would
like to know about myself, about Jeff, about both of us,
about Sustal, about podcasting, send your questions in. You can
send them in an email and a DM comments on
(45:28):
social media. You know how to reach me, you know
how to find me, summon me, use owiji board. But
aside from that, you can get any and all updates
about the show, not only by listening, but by following
along on social media. That's at Sustal Podcast on every
single platform. If you want to hear your scary story
on a Letter from the Beyond episode, you can send
that to me by visiting linktr dot ee slash Sustal podcast,
(45:52):
or my website sustalpodcast dot com and using the official
Letters from the Beyond form. On the website, it's going
to say submit your story or something like that, and
on the link tree it'll also say submit your story
or tell me a story and yeah, you can type
in your story there. If you have a picture, video, audio, recording,
any multimedia, you can also use that form to send
it in and it'll be featured either on the show
(46:13):
or on social media. If you would like to support
the show. I always say it. The easiest way to
do so is by continuing to listen, by sharing it
with your girl friends and telling them that if they
don't listen Aden, that's going to bite each of their toes.
It's going to be ten nights in a row if
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(46:35):
not that, then make sure that you are subscribed, following liking,
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comments on Spotify, just interacting with the show wherever you're listening.
It means so much to me. It's the easiest way
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(46:58):
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everybody gets that, and at most you can get all
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also get like sneak peaks at things that I'm doing
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(47:19):
just posted something about a really fun interview that's coming up,
so you can check that out there. That's all I'm
gonna say about that, but for now, major shout out
to this episode's patrons, and you are Liza, Sadie, Rachel,
Alejandra Luther, April d Josette, Sam, Mandy, Jules, Lori, Genie, Monica, Desiree,
(47:41):
c Ashes, Nedesa, Rachel, Asusena, Marlene chat That, Laney, Desiree A,
Carla Archer, Ricardo, Sarah, Vanessa, Mariza, Nieves, Monica Iris and
man nermal Core. Thank you all so so much for
your support. It means so much to me. I mean
the underworld to me. I will talk to you all
(48:02):
in the next one and until then, not there Sustairs. Bye.
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