Incorporating Religious and Ritual Abuse into Domestic Violence Legal Frameworks
This legislation aims to amend the existing domestic violence bill in New York by expanding its definition to include spiritual, religious, and ritual abuse.

The proposed changes would make it illegal for individuals in domestic partnerships and marriages to engage in coercive tactics, force, psychological manipulation, or any form of abuse that is related to spiritual, religious, or ritualistic practices.  

This includes forms of abuse like Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA). By addressing these issues, the amendment seeks to provide broader protections for individuals who may experience such forms of abuse within their intimate relationships. 

 

   (I) ANY CONDUCT THAT WOULD CONSTITUTE AN OFFENSE IN  THE  PENAL  LAW, 

 AND CREATED A SUBSTANTIAL RISK OF PHYSICAL OR EMOTIONAL HARM, REGARDLESS 

 OF WHETHER SUCH INJURY OCCURRED; OR 

   (II)  ANY  OTHER ABUSE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO VERBAL, EMOTIONAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, SPIRITUAL, RELIGIOUS, AND RITUAL ABUSE. 

   (P) "VICTIM SPOUSE OR DOMESTIC PARTNER SUBJECTED TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE" 

 MEANS THE RESPONDENT'S SPOUSE OR DOMESTIC PARTNER WHO IS  THE  NON-ABUSIVE 

 SPOUSE OR DOMESTIC PARTNER, AND IS DETERMINED TO BE SUBJECT TO DOMESTIC- 

 VIOLENCE AS DEFINED BY SUBDIVISION (O) OF THIS SECTION. 

 

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, REPRESENTED IN THE SENATE AND ASSEMBLY, DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS: 

 

   Section 1. This act shall be known and may be cited as TBA

  2.  Legislative intent.  The legislature hereby finds and declares that cases of intimate partner violence often involve bullying, psychological, and financial abuse. Ritual abuse may also involve worshipping deities like Lucifer and Satan and using deities to intimidate and provoke fear to attain submission from the victim.  
 

The abuse, as mentioned above, is also often indicative of a person who has Machiavellian, narcissistic, psychopathic, and sociopathic personality traits.  

 Once the abusive partner begins to criticize and call the non-abusive spouse cruel names, and intentionally breaks the will of the non-abusive partner, the abusive partner demands and forces the non-abusive partner to hand over material goods and possessions like family inheritance, house, cash, or credit cards for personal or business use; when the non-abusive partner says no, the abusive partner continues to call the non-abusive partner inappropriate names to compel subjugation from the non-abusive partner. 

 

Under this coercion, the abusive partner plays on the fears of the non-abusive partner, using occult tactics like psychological, ritual, and spiritual abuse to break the non-abusive partner. 

 

Ritual abuse has a religious, magical, or supernatural connotation, and the invocations of symbols, deities, or activities are repeated over time and used to frighten and intimidate a child or adult. Ritual abuse is "Repeated, extreme, and cruel abuse.  

 

The physical abuse may include murder, torture, or frightening a person to the point of death. Sexual abuse may involve multiple perpetrators, gang rapes, pedophilia, sexual exploitation, and sexual torture. 

 

 In addition, psychological abuse often includes attempts to change the victim's belief system, e.g., brainwashing or mind control techniques. 

 

“Ritual abuse refers to the methodical psychological, emotional, physical, or sexual mistreatment aimed at instilling fear and domination, often pushing individuals to the brink of death.” 

 

This legislation aims to incorporate ritual, religious, and spiritual abuse as a means to control victims.  

 

The sequence of events is a relevant description of "Her experience.”  

She is a woman who was spiritually abused as a child by her mother after her parents divorced at the age of 7 years old. Throughout her lifetime, she suffered from physical, emotional, psychological, ritual, and religious abuse.  

Her former fiancé, a well-known semi-famous musician and businessman whose father worked for a government agency during the Carter administration, had subjected her to abuse for over four years. This abuse included mind control, psychological manipulation, and various forms of ritual, religious and economic exploitation. 

She worked as a multimedia assistant in 1995-1996 for the abuser's media company. During that year, she took time off from the abuser's company to earn her associate's degree at HVCC.  

 In her first semester of college, she faced the loss of her mother, great aunt, and her two grandparents. Shortly after, she inherited a significant amount of money along with properties.  

Unfortunately, her then-boyfriend took advantage of her naivety and vulnerable state, manipulating her through lies to gain control over her home and property for a fraction of their worth.  

Her X boyfriend further exploited her by suggesting she should invest in his film project, pressuring her to sell the house to him that she had recently inherited, so he could use it as collateral. 

 Shortly after her family's death, her former boss contacted her when he saw her family's deaths in the local obituary. At that time, when she worked for her X’s company, the abuser always treated her respectfully. However, when they met again, immediately, the abuser started using intimidation for money to invest in his company, the amount of ($20,000)  

 At that time, she was creating a children’s board book centered around her dogs when her abuser proposed producing a CD-ROM. Following this suggestion, she ended up paying him more than $7,000. Not long after, her abuser systematically broke her down to gain access to her inheritance.  

Shortly afterward, the abuser started to engage in strange behaviors, such as hovering his hands over her head when he thought she was asleep (called covert hypnosis), spitting on her and her Bible, and showing her disturbing images of baby demons. He would call her evil, selfish, greedy, and use other derogatory names when he asked for money if she said no.  

 

 

She lost at least 20 years of her life being ill, and a few years later was diagnosed with severe PTSD and numerous physical symptoms that paralyzed her body.  She dealt with chronic pain for several years without help or moral support.  

 

She eventually applied for SSDI and was granted Social Security in 2013. Doctors stated that she should have been dead, and doctors stated that those who suffer severe trauma like her were fortunate to “come back” from her nervous breakdown, let alone be alive.