The next step was my initiation and for this I had to go to my convent. They had my passport all signed and tickets ready to ship me out to a foreign country. Two priests met us at the boat and we were taken, heavily veiled, out into the mountains to be put in a cloistered convent, one story underground. (Of course when the priest sat in our living room at home he never told my dad I would live for years one or two stories underground in a foreign land.)

I faced initiation penances, so after three or four days at the new convent, about 9:00 o'clock one morning the Mother Superior told me to come with her. She told me were going to do penance and I would begin my initiation as a Carmelite nun. I remember when she walked me down that dark tunnel and into the room one story below ground level. I had always lived on the first floor, but after taking the black veil I was to live one or two stories underground. When we entered the cold, dark room it was hard to see, for all the light came from seven flickering candles. I was frightened and apprehensive, not knowing what to expect, nor what she planned to do to me.

As we came closer, I could make out a nun lying on a board six feet long (a cooling board). I realized with a shock that she was dead. Although I was not afraid of the dead nun my heart ached for her. When I signed those perpetual vows I had unknowingly signed away every human right. I was not allowed to see, to hear, to complain, to feel or to murmur. I had ears but was to be deaf; eyes but must not see; feelings but soon would be brainwashed so they would be blotted out. As I stood looking at the body, many thoughts and questions raced through my mind but I was bound to silence. How and why did she die?

Mother Superior ordered me to stand vigil over the dead body for one hour, then she went away. I was required to walk over to the frail body frequently, sprinkle it with ashes and holy water and say repeatedly, "Peace be unto you." In an hour a bell was to be tapped somewhere and out of the mysterious darkness behind me another nun came to relieve me. Because she was barefooted on the dirt floor there was no sound. We were forbidden to speak, therefore my relief reached out and touched me on the shoulder. I leaped with fright and began screaming hysterically at the top of my voice.

This loss of control meant I must be punished by being tossed into a dark and dirty dungeon. There I lay for three days and nights, without food or water, just because I had shrieked in fear--a terrible crime. I assure you I never screamed again. You lean fast in a convent to observe the rules.

On the fourth day, again Mother Superior told me we were going to do penance and we went deep under the convent into another dark chamber. We started through the tunnels (there were 35 miles of them under this convent) and, other than candles, there was no light in the rooms we passed. She marched me into a large penance chamber, arm in arm, on our toes, with downcast eyes.

In the flickering candlelight I saw the usual statues of Jesus and Mary in the room. There was also a large eight foot cross, made of heavy, rough timber, lying on its side. She took me near the foot of it and proceeded to strip my clothes off down to the waist. Then she bent my body down over the cross, pulled my hands down below it and fastened them securely to my knees, under the cross.

This was where I was to begin to spill my blood as Jesus had shed His on Calvary. I had been told earlier that I would shed my blood for lost humanity, but they never gave me any idea of how this would be accomplished. Now I was to learn one of the many ways this was to take place. Two other nuns were given flagellation whips fashioned from six leather straps fastened to a wooden handle. In the ends of the thongs were embedded a number of sharp, jagged bits of metal. They began to flog me methodically with these cruel instruments until my bare flesh was thoroughly lacerated from hundreds of cuts and my blood ran all over the floor.

Twist and writhe as I might, there was no escape from the relentless, fiery bite of the ruthless whips. Let me tell you they did a thorough job on me and I was aflame with awful pain and agony. Sobbing and screaming did not stop them, nor were they affected by pitiful cries for mercy. They were well trained and utterly heartless and I was swallowed up in a sea of pain and awful despairing. It was unbelievable, yet it was happening. I thought the beating would never stop. I was helpless and totally without defences.

Mother Superior released my hands from my knees after I had slumped into a moaning, suffering heap and she was satisfied I had spilled enough blood for this time. She drug me to my feet but did not bathe me nor treat the mass of bleeding wounds on my body. She simply pulled my clothes back on and I was forced to work all day, until 9:15 that night. Needless to say, the day was one of agony, but no one seemed to notice. With a sickening horror I realized the meaning of the teachings I had received that God is made happy by this penance and other sufferings. This was supposed to make us holier.

That day was a living hell for me, but this was only the beginning of hundreds of such days. When night came I stood in front of my cell bed where we were required to undress, with our backs to each other. I could not remove my clothing. The garments stained with blood had dried and were stuck tightly to my gaping wounds. It was several nights before I could take them off, and then it was an agonizing and bloody procedure. At mealtime I was not hungry because of the terrible misery I was suffering.

Ordinarily I would have undressed and have slipped into a muslin nightgown, and then enter my cell to be locked in for the night. For a bed we had only a slab or wood--no mattress, springs, pillow or blanket. Before we were permitted to lie down we were required to kneel on a penance prayer board. This contained hundreds of upright, sharp wires to pierce the knees. The upper section where we were to prostrate ourselves upon our arms was also a mass of sharp wires.

Another day the Mother Superior took me through a long, dark tunnel hall for my next initiation penance. As we entered the chamber, again there were seven candles. As she marched me up under the candles I spotted some ropes dangling from the ceiling with some sort of metal clamps on the ends. She made me stand very close, facing the wall and extending my arms in the air. Quickly she snapped the metal bands securely around each thumb. She then stepped to one side and began to turn a crank which took the ropes straight up until I was slowly hoisted from the floor. When I was suspended on the tips of my bare toes she fastened the handle, walked out without a word and slammed and locked the door. The weight of my body on those thumbs and my toes was excruciating.

I was already whimpering and moaning in misery. I had no idea how long I would stay there. Always in these things, you hung there wondering if you might die before they came back to free you. In the white heat of the waves of unbearable pain which wrack the body and mind, death would be a blessed way out.

As hours stretched interminably into days and nights there was no way to calculate how long you had been there. There was no sun; no sounds other than your own fevered sobbings and screams. It was like being buried alive without food or water. Torment and delirium causes you to loose track of reality and nothing seems real except the ever present torture and pain.

This was another part of their brainwashing technique. I could do nothing but to stand there, screaming and crying. No one would hear or help me or even care. Three, four, six and finally ten agonizing hours crept by and every bone, muscle and nerve in my tortured body was screaming for relief. The maddening, unending pain is indescribable and I also grew hungry and thirsty. When my hands and arms began to swell tightly I believed I was going to die.

I had desperately prayed to all the statues in the room. Eventually I realized the Virgin Mary was not hearing a word I sobbed. Hysterically I shouted and pleaded for help from my patron saint; from St. Jude, St. Bartholomew, and every other idol or saint I could ever remember hearing about. I was surrounded by an unearthly silence, broken only by my own fevered screams and groans and the sputtering candles.

There I hung, wracked with pain and saturated in my own human filth, for there was no break in the torture regime for toilet facilities. Just as I felt I was going completely insane, Mother Superior walked in. Directly on the wall in front of me was an adjustable shelf which she raised to the level of my face. On it she placed a pan of water and a pan containing one small potato.

I was starving for water and food but how was I to get it? Painfully I scooted on my toes, tilting first one arm, then the other, straining to reach the pans. When I managed to reach them, I felt the tissues in my lungs tearing with terrible pain. As a matter of fact, many nuns contract tuberculosis after going through this torture. However, only by enduring such pain and strain could I manage to get water or food. I bumped and spilled most of it.

Nine days later Mother Superior came and released first one thumb and then the other and I collapsed in a faint to the floor. My limbs were swollen and shrieking with pain. My eyes felt as if they were being pushed out of my head and my arms were swollen to three times normal size. No part of my anatomy was free from the throbbing pain and soreness.

Of course I could not move. Two nuns picked me up by the shoulders and feet and took me, moaning incoherently, into the infirmary and laid me on a slab of wood. They cut off all my clothes for I was saturated with my own urine and bowel movements. This was another part of the carefully planned brutalization and dehumanization program, designed to produce mindless robots. Following this episode I could not even walk for two and a half months and would have been happy to die.

One day I was called out and again marched down those dread tunnels, not knowing what misery and pain I faced. She marched me into a room with a straight chair with a high back. Pushing me down into the chair, she then removed my headdress and shoved my head forward in my lap and placed my hands on my knees. Quickly she fastened my head and wrists in stocks so I could not move. This done she positioned a faucet directly over my bare head and adjusted it so that it began on my head, a drop at a time.

I cringed in anticipation for I had witnessed others who had been subjected to this for ten long hours. After a short time the drops hitting in the same spot will break the strongest person. Often I and others would writhe and twist against the binding of the stocks, desperately trying to escape that pounding drop of water, even foaming at the mouth. Screaming and crying is never absent from these horror holes, deep under the ground, where no one with an ounce of humanity or compassion will ever hear. Pleas for mercy only bring longer and worse penances.

Many a nun has gone stark raving mad after being repeatedly subjected to this penance. Do not worry, the convent takes care of this too. The world outside will never know the truth. There are underground dungeons for those who have nervous or mental breakdowns. There will be reports and records of the nun and how she died, all lies.

You must realize that this entire religious structure is based on lies and deception and it is small wonder that at all costs, even human life, the hypocritical cloak of righteousness of the Roman Catholic system must be maintained. They will stop at nothing to protect it. Slander, lies, frame-ups, changing and destroying documents, injury and even murder are standard and acceptable procedure. The average person with a conscience and some sort of moral code will struggle to grasp the enormity and inhuman demonic intelligence which drives this religious monster.

Once I was taken to one of the filthy dungeons with dirt floors. I then had my ankles fastened securely to leather straps in the rings at the top of rods mounted in cement. I was standing with my feet in those rings until my strength failed or I fainted. When that happened I just crumpled over with my chest touching my ankles. After getting to a certain stage of pain and exhaustion there is nothing you can do. I must then stay in this cramped position for two or three days, depending on the whims of my tormentors. No one will come and there was no food, water, or toilet facilities. Bugs crawled over my body. It is no wonder there is such a cry against such horrors being uncovered and revealed.

The loneliness in the convent is inhuman and cruel, for there are no friends there. Everyone is set up to spy on everyone else and the slightest infraction of rules brings instant and harsh punishment. There were on friendships among the nuns. Suspicion and separation was the order of the day for convent living. We were taught to trust no one and depend upon no one, by a methodical and systematic isolation. The victims could never be allowed to unite to do something about conditions.

Communists followed a similar program in Korean prisoner-of-war camps to prevent any closeness or co-operation between the inmates. Each nun is taught to be a policeman to watch and inform on all others. Betrayal of others causes the informer to be in good standing with Mother Superior. He approval is desired so strongly that often the sisters make up and exaggerate things in order to gain this kind of favor. Absolute obedience in everything is demanded in the convent and you are wise to learn to obey quickly and without question.

Each time I came in my cell I was required to kneel there, praying for lost humanity, while I suffered and shed more of my blood. Only after this could I lie down on the slab which served as a bed. Promptly at seven minutes before midnight a bell was always tapped and cells unlocked so we all could gather in the inner chapel to pray another hour for lost humanity. At seven minutes till one o'clock we returned to our cells to be locked up again until 4:30 a.m. At this time a bell was tapped and we had exactly five minutes to get dressed and report for duty, barefooted. This is a daily routine. To be late in dressing brought severe punishments.

Each night at 8:00 p.m. we were required to go down a long, dark hall to do a penance in the meditation room. Located there was a tiny room about four foot square, which contained a human skull and candle on a small table. We were to slip to our knees, gaze into the skull and meditate for one hour on death. When this hour was over, a bell was tapped and we returned to our cells where we dropped all our clothes. We then took three interlaced chains with sharp edges (which hung in our cells) and began to lay stripes on our own bodies in imitation of the stripes of Christ on earth.

Sometimes, because of lack of food and strength it was difficult to lay on many stripes. If Mother Superior suspected this, she would order you to strip and have two other nuns to whip you viciously. Following this you would lose all desire for your coffee, bread, or anything else for a few days, because of being in such misery.

This was cloistered convent life, where a merciless system of brainwashing was employed, just as Russia does in the concentration camps. It is exactly the same brutal barbarism, but Rome rides under the banner of religion while communist Russia is openly atheistic.

In the refractory where our meals were served, were two long wooden tables and each nun was assigned a certain place to sit. No one ever sits in another's place. For breakfast we were given only a big tin cup of strong black coffee with a piece of black bread which weighed exactly four ounces. Although we worked very hard all day there was no lunch, and about 5:00 p.m. we would gather again in the refractory, if we could walk under our own power.

For supper fresh vegetables were cooked together, making a tasteless, watery soup, without seasonings of any kind. This was served in a pie tin with two ounces of black bread and a tin cup of strong black coffee. Two or three times per week we were given one-half glass of skim milk.

This was our monotonous diet, 365 days per year. The only exception was Christmas day when we were each given one tablespoon of molasses. My, what a delight that was, and we ate it very slowly, savoring each drop. All year long we looked forward to this treat.

With the limited food rations, three hundred sixty-five days per year, we never went to bed without gnawing hunger pains. For years I would roll and toss at night, unable to sleep, and wondering how much longer I could endure this continued torment. I assure you that it is sheer misery to live on the brink of controlled starvation constantly. Of course starving persons are weaker and can be more easily coerced and forced into every form of degrading obedience and subservience. This was executed with fiendish delight and a definite purpose to crush the human spirit.

With such a horribly restricted diet, torture, bloodshed and long, hard hours, it is little wonder that bodies fail and become sickly and many nuns die young in the cloistered convents. Remember there are cloistered convents in the United States.

In preparing vegetables, potatoes were boiled with skins on and peeled after cooking. Once while on kitchen duty, I was throwing a pile of these potato peelings in the garbage. I was so hungry I quickly snatched two handfuls from the can and hid them in my clothing. I told no one, for in the convent everyone is watching each other and there are informers everywhere who betray others. That night, in my cell, greedily I gobbled down the potato skins because I was so starved.

The next morning at 9:00 sharp Mother Superior announced with a smirk that I was to do penance and I knew this was not a regular penance day. With sinking heart I went with her to one of the torture chambers. It was a huge room with the usual seven candles. When she tapped a bell, two little nuns appeared, quickly binding my hands and feet together. Mother then ordered one to pinch my nostrils tightly so that I was forced to open my mouth to breathe. She then dumped a heaping tablespoon of hot cayenne pepper in my mouth and I had to choke it down in order to breathe. For two days after this I was plagued with itching, burning hives all over my body. This, for eating a bit of garbage!

Another time I saw a piece of bread lying on a table, and watched it for several days. Finally I took the bread, ate it in my cell, and the next morning Mother Superior again said we were going to do penance. Somehow she found out about the scrap of bread. This time I was taken to a room with a square table and was made to stand at the edge with my hand and wrist strapped on a board.

It was very dark and my eyes adjusted slowly in the dim light. She moved over to one side to manipulate some sort of control and suddenly another heavy board smashed down on the hand and wrist. The blinding pain caused me to slump to the floor, but I could not get loose and was dangling by the helpless, injured hand. Stealing even a mouthful of stale bread was treated as a heinous crime and drew swift and cruel retribution.

As the years dragged by I leaned to use a hammer, saw, shovel and anything else a man normally does. We worked very hard, performing heavy manual labor, digging out underground rooms and tunnels, building walls, plastering, etc. Often we were two, three or four miles back in the tunnels. Sometimes we wondered if we even had voices because of the strict rule of silence, and would speak in whispers to each other. The very next morning Mother Superior would call the offenders out and say, "You are going to do penance." We wondered how she could have heard us. One day we learned that all thirty-five miles of tunnel under the convent were wired so she could hear every whisper.

Working back in the tunnels we listened for the tap of the bell which signaled us to come in for meals. Sometimes, due to fatigue or distance we would arrive late. Because each was in her own place, it was obvious who was tardy. When this happened, we had to ask a nun to hand us our tin cup, pan and tablespoon. We then had to craw behind each nun, begging for one tablespoon of her food. After crawling to each one, the offenders sat on the floor to eat. This is supposed to humble them by breaking their wicked pride, and also to promote promptness.

Our day in the convent began at 4:30 in the morning when Mother Superior tapped a bell. This signal meant we had exactly five minutes to get dressed. In the beginning I was late a half a minute, but the punishment was so severe for this minor infraction of rules that I never was late again. Raw terror and cruel punishment bring absolute and unquestioning obedience in the convent to every rule and order, no matter how unreasonable or trivial. Lies and deceit covering and concealing such infractions to avoid the dire consequences become a way of life for the nuns.

When we finished dressing, we would march on tiptoes, with downcast eyes, to report to the Mother Superior. There she assigned us our daily chores. These could be scrubbing, washing clothes, ironing, cooking, or other heavy and hard labor assignments.

Washing was done in twelve old-fashioned washtubs with rub-boards. We ironed with cast iron flatirons, heated on a stove. Not only did we do the laundry and ironing for our convent but the local priests were free to load us with all of their linens and clothing, which they did. After all, the service, performed by slave labor, was free to them.

Down in the laundry room there were rough cement floors and the heavy washing in twelve tubs caused a lot of soapy water to be sloshed on the floor. We walked around in our bare feet because shoes and stockings were a luxury we were denied in the convent. Suddenly Mother Superior would glide up, terrifying everyone because there is no way to know why she had come. When she made such an appearance, someone invariably had to suffer. Because things were done so quietly in a convent, we learned to sense her presence before she arrived.

One of her favorite tricks in the laundry room was to order one or more nuns to prostrate themselves on the cold, wet, soapy, floor. This done, with a cruel sneer she would order that the victim lick long crosses on the rough cement with her tongue. She watched intently to see if there was the slightest flicker of anger, distaste or hesitation on the face of the one forced to lick the crosses. If she did, she would assign ten to twenty-five more crosses to be done. Believe me, the tongue was always raw and bleeding before she was satisfied, and the victim would be unable to eat or drink for a day or two because of the mangled tongue. Many times Mother would return the very next day, seize the same victim and force her to repeat the crosses again.

Hard manual labor was advocated as a good physical discipline. In our emaciated condition because of the constant torture and systematic starvation we were driven and kept in a state of chronic fatigue and exhaustion. We were property of the Pope and the system, to be worked to death for their pleasure. All the crying and pleading we did would never be heard by anyone who would lift a finger to help us.

Another favored punishment was to compel us to crawl up and down an aisle ten times, upright on the knees. After I made it five or six times my knees were killing me. Drained of strength, I could not continue but collapsed in a faint. Mother Superior shook me roughly, pulled me back on my knees and commanded me to resume crawling. Desperately I tried to finish my assignment. The next day she might order me to do the same thing again and this would rip off the scabs from my injured knees, further bruising and tearing them.

This is typical of torments and tortures to which the little nuns are subjected day after day, year in and year out. There is no mercy, only heartless cruelty and this multiplies and reinforces the dreary hopelessness and despair which grips the entire cloister.

Continually we were told that doing such "penance" was pleasing and brought happiness to God, Who looked down on our misery and suffering, and smiled His approval. Although this was hard to believe, heathens who know no better simply believe what they are taught. Never having read the Bible, we had no way to learn the truth.

Most of us were reared in Roman Catholic teachings and traditions and snatched away from family and friends at an early age. It took a while for the awful truth and scope of the deception to soak in. When it did, it produced atheists who hated anything associated with God or the saints. Vicious hatred and violence then floods the disillusioned and embittered heart.

There was no bath tub in this convent, only a metal, horse watering tank and we were only permitted to have a bath when Mother Superior ordered it. Even when bathing I wore my scapular, although I shed all my other clothes. We were taught that the first Saturday after the death of a Roman Catholic the Virgin Mary descends into purgatory. Whoever she finds there wearing a scapular, she will release. I was bound by these and other religious fables and lies, but did not know any better. I was taught to accept as truth everything Mother Superior said.

In the convent there was a huge painting in a certain room which depicted all horrors of tormented men, women, children and even babies in the awful flames of purgatory. The agony and misery was so graphically portrayed that it actually seemed real. We were marched in on occasion to meditate on the tortures of the damned for a long period. After this session Mother Superior would address the nuns and say that they had better go and work another penance on their bodies, because those poor people were begging to escape the awful burning flames there.

There were many days when I would deliberately burn my own body and spill some more of my blood because of my conviction that as I suffered it would help these miserable people to be delivered. I often say that if the mass and purgatory were taken from the Roman Catholic system it would eliminate her of her income and she would starve to death. This evil Babylonian system drains both the living and the dead for funds to finance her cancerous spread throughout the world.

The nuns cells were bare except for a statue of the Virgin Mary holding an infant Jesus. As I dropped on the sharp wires which lined the prayer board and prostrated my arms on still other penetrating wire, I would pray earnestly for lost humanity. I had been taught that my suffering and bloodshed would help to save them. I believed that my poor old grandmother would be released sooner from purgatory (our family priest had assured us she went there at death) because of my sufferings. Often, in spite of the misery, I was spurred on to continue in this painful posture longer, fervently hoping to speed her release.