Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1996, page 30
What can be worse? What can be worse than incestuous pedophilic abuse? Incestuous
abuse involving multiple perpetrators, not only the father but also other adults, such as the
mother and the father‟s friends, may be “remembered” as sexually abusing the patient. The
patient may come to see ordinary memories of childhood as a lie, with monsters hiding
behind all the masks of caring faces. What could be worse? Being sexually abused during
satanic rituals and forced to drink the blood of dead animals. (As we will see below, this is
one of the events reported by Joan Borawick.) By this time the patient has learned that she
had to develop a series of alters during childhood to protect herself from being
overwhelmed by the horrors inflicted on her.
Unbelievably, it continues. What could be worse? The patient learns that her family is part
of a multigenerational satanic cult her grandparents and great-grandparents were
members of the cult, and each generation was subsequently abused. It is now the patient‟s
turn. Additionally, the patient may learn that the cult programs some alters to be self-
mutilating and/or suicidal when that alter takes charge, the results can be injurious or
fatal. What scenario could be worse? The patient may remember being made into a breeder,
forced to bear babies who became slaves to the cult or, alternatively, were aborted, after
which the patient was forced to eat her own babies. By this time, members of the patient‟s
family may be remembered as high authorities in the cult, and one of the patient‟s own
alters may also be the high priestess. This alter must eat bits and pieces of thousands of
people each year (see Ofshe &Watters, 1994).
In vulnerable patients this process of escalating horrific fantasy induction reaches the point
of an enduring, confidently-held delusion. The delusion usually lasts at least so long as the
therapist, an attorney, or someone else significant to the patient is there to support it.
Remember, most forms of therapy are beneficent but all too often therapy that centers on
recovering memories of childhood abuse is not. Instead it is destructive of both patients and
those who otherwise would have been closest to them.
Moreover, although this depiction of recovered memory therapy includes extremes, it is by
no means a caricature. Some therapists who treat adult victims of recently recalled ICA do
not create an environment of escalating suggestions, but it happens often enough to be
frightening (cf. Loftus &Ketcham, 1994 Ofshe &Watters, 1994 Perry, 1995 Yapko,
1994). For example, a recent case received notoriety when a well-known psychotherapist
and authority on MPD was sued by a patient who no longer believed she was a satanic high
priestess. She claimed years of belief in satanic cults during psychiatric hospitalization were
due to suggestions in hypnosis that escalated unduly (Ofshe &Watters, 1994). This is not
an isolated case. Both of the present authors know psychologists and psychiatrists whose
practice includes a number of patients who have “learned” or are convinced that their
multiple personality disorder occurred as one result of satanic ritual abuse. Rather than
treating such fantasies with benign neglect, their diagnosis and ensuing suggestive
treatment serves to consolidate the fantasies into believed-in memories.
Borawick v. Shay
One approach to better understanding the problems we are discussing is to examine how
our courts are dealing with these issues. In a recent decision, the United States Court of
Appeals for the Second District sitting on a three-judge panel unanimously affirmed the U.S.
District Court ruling (Borawick v. Shay, 1995) to exclude the testimony of Joan Borawick, a
plaintiff seeking damages for incestuous childhood abuse allegedly inflicted by her aunt and
uncle, Christine and Morrie Shay. The plaintiff, who was herself a California attorney,
claimed that her aunt inserted a cap pistol and a broomstick in the plaintiff‟s vagina on two
separate occasions during family visits when she was 4 and 7 years old. In addition, the
aunt allegedly involved Ms. Borawick in some type of ritual dancing while both the aunt and
child were naked. On another occasion, during these visits, the plaintiff claimed that her

Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1996, page 31
uncle placed a dog collar around her neck and committed anal rape. The court‟s decision
states that Ms. Borawick also “leveled fanciful accusations of sexual abuse against
numerous persons other than the defendants.... For example, Borawick allegedly recalls
being raped and sexually abused at the age of 3 during rituals by men whom she believed
to be members of the Masons. She also reports recollecting several incidents in which she
was drugged by injection as well as an incident in which she was forced to drink blood at a
ritual involving a dead pig, incense, chanting, and people dressed in black gowns” (Borawick
v. Shay, 1995, Slip opinion, p. 10).2
Ms. Borawick stated that she had no memory of these events for more than 20 years. While
seeking treatment in 1987 for various physical and psychological ills, Ms. Borawick‟s
physician referred her to a lay hypnotist, Valerian St. Regis. Her physician seemingly
believed that “„problems in childhood‟ sometimes cause chronic illness and are susceptible
to recall through hypnosis” (Borawick v. Shay, 1995, Slip opinion, p. 2). St. Regis was
known to help patients recover such memories.
During a course of 12 to 14 unrecorded hypnotic sessions in 1988, St. Regis aided Ms.
Borawick in recovering memories of childhood rape, incest, and ritual abuse involving her
aunt and uncle, among others. St. Regis seemingly allowed or suggested that Ms. Borawick
remain amnesic for these events when not in hypnosis, because he believed the memories
recovered in hypnosis would be “„devastating‟ and would probably surface in time”
(Borawick v. Shay, 1995, Slip opinion, p. 2). Ms. Borawick reports that it was several
months after the end of hypnotic treatment before she began to remember in “bits and
pieces” a lengthy and involved history of satanic ritual abuse (SRA). More memories
emerged over the ensuing months.
In January 1992 Ms. Borawick initiated suit against her aunt and uncle for their “alleged
willful, wanton, and malicious sexual exploitation of her in 1961 and 1964,” when she was 4
and 7 years old, respectively (Borawick v. Shay, 1995, Slip opinion, p. 5). The defendants
claimed that Ms. Borawick‟s memory was rendered unreliable by hypnosis and asked that
her entire testimony be excluded at trial. When the District Court agreed, the defendants
asked for and were granted summary judgment. Ms. Borawick appealed to the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Second District, which affirmed the District Court‟s suppression of Ms.
Borawick‟s hypnotically influenced recall.
As part of its decision, the Court of Appeals noted the following five concerns with
hypnotically influenced recall: (1) the subject becomes hypersuggestible, (2) the subject
may fill in gaps in memory with fantasy [i.e., confabulate], (3) the subject may develop
unwarranted confidence in the version of the story that emerged during or through hypnosis
[memory hardening], (4) the subject may become less able to distinguish between accurate
and inaccurate memory, and (5) the subject may incorporate postevent information into the
narrative. Quoting Diamond (1980), the court held that “hypnotically recalled memory is apt
to be a mosaic of (1) appropriate accurate events, (2) entirely irrelevant actual events, (3)
pure fantasy, and (4) fantasized details to make a logical whole.” The present authors agree
with the five concerns expressed by the court and the conclusions quoted from Diamond.
The court then considered decisions by other courts about the admissibility of hypnotically
influenced testimony. These other courts made four types of rulings: (1) that hypnosis went
to the credibility but not the admissibility of the evidence, (2) that hypnotically influenced
testimony be excluded per se (i.e., automatically), (3) that adherence to some form of the
Hurd safeguards determines admissibility, and (4) that the “totality of the circumstances,”
as determined by the trial court, shall govern the admissibility of the hypnotically influenced
testimony. The last ruling, number 4 above, was the choice of the Borawick court. It calls
for a case-by-case evidentiary hearing at which the probative and prejudicial value of the
testimony is assessed. While on the surface this ruling seems reasonable, especially if the