Turns Out the Boy Did Not Go To Heaven

Anyone surprised to read this?

A bestselling Christian book that claims to detail a boy's trip to heaven and his return to Earth is being pulled from stores after one of its co-authors admitted he made the whole thing up.

The 2010 memoir, The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven, was written by Alex Malarkey and his father, Kevin Malarkey, a Christian therapist in Ohio.

In 2004, when Alex was 6, the two were badly injured in an automobile accident. Alex ended up in a coma for two months, and the book claims to tell the story of his trips to heaven during that time.

Malarkey described a heaven with a “hole in outer heaven” that goes to hell. He detailed his conversations with Jesus Christ and meetings with the devil, who at one point blamed him for the accident.

But on Tuesday, the boy, who was left a quadriplegic in the accident, took it all back. The Pulpit & Pen website published “An Open Letter to Lifeway and Other Sellers, Buyers, and Marketers of Heaven Tourism, by the Boy Who Did Not Come Back From Heaven,” written by Alex.

Also, it appears that the publisher was made aware of the story's dubiousness, but chose not to act.

Millions of people bought this asinine book. Keep that in mind the next time you hear the New Atheists criticized for attacking a straw man.

More like this

They finally pulled it from the shelves.

So, the time line goes something like this:
2004: car accident. Alex is 6.

Accident + 6 months: Alex recovers and tells miraculous story to get attention (that's what he says about his motivation).

2010: book published

I'm guessing on this one, but...Late 2013-early 2014: boy recants to mother (at least; maybe others).

April 2014: mother publicizes recantation on her facebook page and says book should be withdrawn. Nothing happens. AFAIK, there is no public word from the father, who was the second author on the book.

January 2015, last week: Alex publishes letter in a Christian magazine reiterating his recantation.

January 2015, yesterday: publishing house finally removes books from shelves.

Compared to the cottington fairy case and many other likely cases of childhood-confabulation-makes-it-big, I think Alex's recantation after 6 years and at the age of 13 is pretty darn good. Yeah, in an ideal world he would've had the strength of character to not lie or to take it back earlier, but the world is not ideal. In terms of the way humans really behave after some lie of theirs nets them a financial gain, IMO he seems to be way ahead of the curve.

I should also point out that there appears to be some testimonial evidence that the publisher knew the book was a fraud before April 2014. The mom's appeal that month evidently makes reference to earlier admissions, saying things like 'why is this still going on?' So Alex's initial recandation and the mother's communication of it to the publisher could have happened much earlier than Spring 2014.

Anyone surprised to read this?

Yes, I was surprised. But only because I didn't expect them to actually admit that it was a fraud.

By Neil Rickert (not verified) on 16 Jan 2015 #permalink

Looking back, one might have been put off by the name of the authors.

By Stephen Meskin (not verified) on 16 Jan 2015 #permalink

@Stephen Meskin #4:

That was my exact first thought.

By Double Shelix (not verified) on 16 Jan 2015 #permalink

The family name is actually "Malarkey"? Is that a funny coincidence, or a flag that this was all a joke gone wrong?

Yeah, in an ideal world he would’ve had the strength of character to not lie or to take it back earlier

Eh, I'm not even going to try to judge the strength of character of a quadruplegic small child. I just think it's very impressive that he took it back. I'm not sure I'd be able to in his situation.

Redoubled jeers at the dad for exploiting the kid, though.

By Anton Mates (not verified) on 16 Jan 2015 #permalink

(And by #7 I don't meant that quadruplegics can't be expected to have strong characters--just that he's even more dependent on his family than the average kid of his age, and that makes speaking out very brave.)

By Anton Mates (not verified) on 16 Jan 2015 #permalink

From the quote in the HuffPo story:

“I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible.”

That should have been apparent from details in the Malarkey/Burpo stories; halos, wings, Mary beside the throne, holes in heaven going to hell, grimy devil profiles. Cartoons and Dante. Very sad…embarrassing.

===

Anton,

"Redoubled jeers at the dad for exploiting the kid"

Check.

The fact that this boy felt he needed to tell this story to get attention says to me there wasn't a whole lot of support from the family when he needed it. Really sad.

"That should have been apparent from details in the Malarkey/Burpo stories; halos, wings, Mary beside the throne, holes in heaven going to hell, grimy devil profiles. "
No, it should be apparent right from the start that any of these books about dying and going to heaven and returning are loads of crap - no more credible than a story about going to Neverland and returning. It isn't the fact that the details in one person's narrative don't match what you believe: it is the fact that the whole idea is a smoldering pile of crap.

What makes the father's actions particularly reprehensible is that this is going to hang over his son's head for the rest of his life. And yet it started out with something completely normal and generally innocuous: a young boy making a fantastical claim, just a few steps from "playing pretend." To take that fantasy and sell it as a lie to millions, rather than keeping it as a kind of family game the kid can grow out of (a la the Tooth Fairy), means that you've warped what could have been a nice story the boy might tell others when he's older (or keep to himself) into a shameful story about a best-selling scam that he will probabiy hope no one around him brings up.

I followed up on this story and there are a few more details that nobody here has mentioned yet:

Alex himself got banned from the Facebook page promoting the book, when he tried to get on there and publish a retraction.

Alex's mother had written to the publisher seeking to have the book retracted, but the publisher did not retract it at that point.

There are a number of Christian writers who have expressed deep skepticism about the book but were ignored.

One of them also had some communication with Alex's mother, who wrote back to him to say that Alex's father has exploited the situation mercilessly, earned big profits on the book, and has not used any of that money to support Alex. To my mind, this is the most damning part and it demonstrates where the problem is.

---

Based on the published information so far, the following seems to be reasonable inference:

Alex probably had some kind of NDE following his accident (childhood NDEs are well known in the medical literature), but nothing like what was published. Alex's father probably elicited much of the embellishment by suggestion.

To be very clear about this: I don't find it credible that Alex himself was the source of some of the embellishments that have been discussed; they sound like the kind of material that would be imagined by an adult and attributed to a child. Adults do this frequently when they over-interpret the play and imaginative activities of children. Very often that over-interpreting is in the form of concretization, assuming incorrectly that the child does not recognize the boundaries between his/her imagination (e.g. pretending to be Batman or whatever) and reality ("No, Mom, I'm not going to jump off the ledge and try to fly, I know it's just a movie!").

Alex's father then probably believed the embellished version and had no insight into his own role eliciting it or concretizing whatever parts Alex had added from Alex's own imagination.

The father's intent to publish may have been innocent enough at the very beginning, but would have become wholly corrupt the moment he recognized the profit potential of the book. At that point, Alex's protestations that the material was made up, would have been ignored by the father. That's the point at which the father becomes morally culpable for abusing his son by exploiting his son's medical circumstances for the father's own fame and profit.

That said, the atheist/rationalist community deserves its own share of criticism for exploiting this situation.

First of all, mocking a seriously disabled child due to his last name is just downright immature and reprehensible. Mocking a disabled child due to his religious beliefs is equally reprehensible. All of that has got to stop, now. "Pick on someone your own size" applies here.

Second, using the fraudulent nature of this book as a means of asserting that all accounts of NDEs are fraudulent, is absurd, gratuitously insulting to the intimate lives of innocent people, and overtly counterproductive in the most pragmatic sense. Dean @ #10, I'm talking to you.

We, here, all scream bloody murder when the religious right attempts to use examples of scientific fraud to deny the validity of science overall. Consistency (the very basis of logic!) requires that we abide by the same general rule. The present instance of fraud does not generalize to the conclusion that anything remotely similar (e.g. accounts of NDEs) is also fraud. It may be mistaken, it may be illusory, or whatever (or not), but "fraud" means a deliberate lie for personal gain, and people who make that charge against others had damn well better have their facts in a row or they will lose all credibility.

There is a difference between "I believe that NDEs, including your NDE, are the result of neurochemical events in the brain, and do not require supernatural explanations," and "You're lying for personal gain." Give that serious thought.

I have lately been seeing evidence of serious pushback and backlash against the New Atheism on the basis that many who espouse it are engaged in blatantly obnoxious attempts to dominate and insult and humiliate others. That also has got to stop, now, or we are going to lose with people who are undecided about elements of these issues that are truly important to public policy.

@G #13-

"First of all, mocking a seriously disabled child due to his last name is just downright immature and reprehensible."

Has that been widely done, or indeed done at all? As opposed to mocking the father, or merely noting the irony of the surname?

"Mocking a disabled child due to his religious beliefs is equally reprehensible."

Alex is quadriplegic, not mentally disabled. I'm sure physically disabled people would be insulted to hear their beliefs were to be treated differently than anyone elses'.

"using the fraudulent nature of this book as a means of asserting that all accounts of NDEs are fraudulent, is absurd..."

Has anyone done that? Dean @ #10 wrote that the entire idea of NDEs being a real mental journey to the afterlife is crap, thus Alex's example is probably also crap. Which is fine logic. As for the fraud accusation, that's directed towards Alex's father and the publisher if they knew Alex retracted his story yet continued to make money off it. It's not directed towards Alex himself. Indeed, everyone here seems to be supporting Alex.

So none of your complaints seem to be directed toward examples on this page at least. Your final claim that New Atheism is losing people based on a backlash of its directness has been claimed since the time the term was invented, but never seems to reflect reality. "You've been seeing it" is a nice anecdote, but the 'None's' are rising in numbers regardless.

By Mickey Mortimer (not verified) on 17 Jan 2015 #permalink

First of all, mocking a seriously disabled child due to his last name is just downright immature and reprehensible. Mocking a disabled child due to his religious beliefs is equally reprehensible. All of that has got to stop, now. “Pick on someone your own size” applies here.

That hasn't been happening, so your concern is ill-placed. I don't think there is any way, given the evidence we have, to consider the boy to be other than a victim, first of the accident, then of a father and publisher who wanted to exploit what he said. If the latest news is correct the news for him is worse because despite the fact that the book was quite successful, very little of the money earned from it went to pay for his care, short term or long term. The father seems to have come out quite well.

<<There is a difference between “I believe that NDEs, including your NDE, are the result of neurochemical events in the brain, and do not require supernatural explanations,” and “You’re lying for personal gain.”

True, but again you have things wrong. Nobody said the boy lied for personal gain. It was said that reasonable people should have known the story was a load of crap. (If I were pushed I'd say that the publisher likely did realize it was crap but saw the money as more important than being a decent person, but that is simply my cynical side coming through.)

I can't comment on the evidence you claim to have been seeing; given your misreading of what was said in these discussions I can't be sure of what you might have seen elsewhere.

Agreed, nobody here is accusing the boy of fraud.

But keyword search the names, and you'll find numerous forums online where this story is being discussed. In some of those forums, otherwise-rational people are "commenting" on the "irony" of the name. "Commenting on irony" is mocking with plausible deniability.

Statements such as "NDEs are crap" are emotionally analogous to "your wife is ugly." Can you have a rational conversation after someone insults you like that? Do you expect someone else to listen to you after you insult them like that?

Seriously: emotional intelligence counts. The best science communicators have it. Sagan, Tyson, and our own Ethan Siegel in these pages.

There was a time when the ability of a working scientist to communicate effectively with the public, was regarded as a bad thing for his (usually "his") career, and the word "popularizer" was an epithet. Thirty years of religious extremists running the show in politics, have convinced us of the error of that kind of judgement.

We can learn from that. Or not.

"keyword search the names, and you’ll find numerous forums online where this story is being discussed. In some of those forums, otherwise-rational people are “commenting” on the “irony” of the name. “Commenting on irony” is mocking with plausible deniability. "

But again, are they mocking Alex, who owned up to his mistake, or mocking his dad, who seems to deserve it? And are these online forums "the atheist/rationalist community", or merely a subsection of them?

"Statements such as “NDEs are crap” are emotionally analogous to “your wife is ugly.” Can you have a rational conversation after someone insults you like that? Do you expect someone else to listen to you after you insult them like that?"

Far be it for me to repeat the New Atheist vs. Accomodationist debate from years back, but the main points were that- A. New atheists aren't trying to reach the committed religionist, we're reaching those on the sidelines, and B. if you think of Sagan as the ideal atheist communicator, why didn't the percentage of religious people drop in the 1980s (which is ironically the start of your 'thirty years of religious extremists')? Yet it has dropped since the 2000's once New Atheists became the face of atheism. You can learn from that, or not.

By Mickey Mortimer (not verified) on 19 Jan 2015 #permalink

Statements such as “NDEs are crap” are emotionally analogous to “your wife is ugly.

I have no idea how you reach that conclusion and don't care. I realize (or maybe it's simply hope) that you realize stories of NDE as being any more than chemically induced dreams are crap. Would I use the same language if I were speaking to someone who wondered about them? No. Once again, context is important.

So G, do people really go to heaven and come back? I anxiously await your evidence.

By Michael Fugate (not verified) on 19 Jan 2015 #permalink

So, there was evidence that the book was a fraud? Evidence other than the content of the book? Well, I'll be!

By Valhar2000 (not verified) on 19 Jan 2015 #permalink

Statements such as “NDEs are crap” are emotionally analogous to “your wife is ugly.

Emotionally being the operative word. This statement is trivially correct.

By Valhar2000 (not verified) on 19 Jan 2015 #permalink

G:

Statements such as “NDEs are crap” are emotionally analogous to “your wife is ugly.” Can you have a rational conversation after someone insults you like that?

Sure you can. Here's how: you just take no offense at the phrase 'are crap' by understanding that it's intended as hyperbolic shorthand for "have no evidence to back them up," and you respond to the substance of the comment rather than tone trolling it.

In the spirit of reaching across the fence, I'll go first. There is no definitive proof that NDE's are anything more than the neural signaling of a brain shutting down. The experiences vary and there is no objective scientific evidence of a 'soul' or similar component of human sentience that could "go" anywhere upon death.

Now that I've removed all the emotionally-charged insults, I - like Michael - look forward to your objective evidence for a soul.

In his statement he said he didn't go to heaven. He gets an A for honesty.

Then he said the bible is the only truth. His parents get an A for brainwashing.

What motivated him to come clean? Fear of going to hell for lying? I really feel sorry for him. Shame on his parents.

By Matt Foley (not verified) on 20 Jan 2015 #permalink

G: "I have lately been seeing evidence of serious pushback and backlash against the New Atheism on the basis that many who espouse it are engaged in blatantly obnoxious attempts to dominate and insult and humiliate others. "

Lately? This tone jockeying has been going on for at least ten years. And why do they harp on tone? Because they have nothing else.

BTW, if you are seriously concerned with respect and with tone, why do you use the term "New Atheism"? Can you explain the difference between the "New Atheism" and the old?

By Bayesian Bouff… (not verified) on 20 Jan 2015 #permalink

Not to mention, have the tone police ever read any history? Renaissance humanists? Enlightenment scholars? The people losing the argument have always complained about tone - if they were winning, they would laugh. People can call me names, misrepresent my arguments, whatever - if I have evidence and reason on my side, why would I care?

Speaking of evidence, any thing on NDEs G other than as eric mentions the brain in the process of shutting down?

By Michael Fugate (not verified) on 20 Jan 2015 #permalink

"as eric mentions the brain in the process of shutting down?"

How do they know this?

It is called science Phil, ever heard of it?

By Michael Fugate (not verified) on 21 Jan 2015 #permalink

Oh. So there is evidence involved...clinical studies and stuff. What and where is it?

Phil,

You have it bass-ackward. It may be different in religious studies, but in science it is person who introduces new explanations that must justify their explanation. We know that people die. Therefore, we know that their brains shut down. That's a scientifically valid explanation for what people experience as NDE's. Nothing new is needed for that explanation. If you want to instead propose that NDE's are caused by interaction with God, the burden of proof is on YOU to justify your explanation, not on the scientific community to refute it. Where's YOUR evidence, Phil?

BTW, I'm not looking for Biblical quotes here, so please spare me. I'm looking for direct evidence that some part of a person's consciousness (call it the soul if you want) actually leaves the dying person's body and goes to some other location and causes the reported experience. Please keep in mind that people HAVE in the past tried to provide just such evidence; they just have not succeeded. If your evidence is better, then let's see it.

Phil: don't you know how to google? Scroll down to the section on neurotransmitters. There are a host of clinical studies supporting the hypothesis that changes in brain chemistry and the increase/decrease of various neurotransmitters can cause hallucinations. There are many other possible sources for hallucinations too, because scientists actually do research when they want to figure out the truth, they don't just engage in arguments from religious authority, wishful thinking, and/or blue-skying.

Now its tit-for-tat time. I showed you what you asked for. Its your turn to show us your clinical studies providing evidence that in an NDE, the person's soul goes to heaven and comes back again.

Phil is not strong on providing evidence for anything, or for reading the evidence presented to him.

Does the kid who's story inspired the Heaven Is For Real book/movie count for something? He allegedly reported to his mom the existence of his older miscarried sister in heaven whom he had never been told about. Does that count as evidence of an afterlife? He obviously never met the sister, and was never told of the miscarriage or gender so he had no memory to draw from. The book was a best seller so some believed that this particular kid was telling the truth. I believe there was also some information he was said to come back with about his dead great grandpa, whom he'd also never met.

By Lt. Wassabewabe (not verified) on 22 Jan 2015 #permalink

Here's a little thought for your ID/creationist friends - do a study of the brains of those who claim to have revelations from a god and those who don't. If there is a "sensus divinitatis" then we should find something that allows connection to the "cosmic mind." I see Templeton jumping all over this....

By Michael Fugate (not verified) on 22 Jan 2015 #permalink

@32:

Does the kid who’s story inspired the Heaven Is For Real book/movie count for something? He allegedly reported to his mom the existence of his older miscarried sister in heaven whom he had never been told about. Does that count as evidence of an afterlife? He obviously never met the sister, and was never told of the miscarriage or gender so he had no memory to draw from.

No, not really. Kids pick up information from parents all the time without the parent being aware of it. I say that as a parent.
Moreover, given the subject of the original post, I hope you will agree with me that "the book was a best seller" has no bearing on whether the kid was telling the truth. Right?
Come back with information you couldn't possibly have known, and then we'll consider it. Like, say, tomorrow's lottery numbers. Having information that the people around you knew but we didn't observe you hearing isn't a miracle, its what every revival tent healer and corner fortune teller uses to separate fools from their money.

The book was a best seller so some believed that this particular kid was telling the truth.

People believe vaccinations case autism, the government is pumping stuff into the atmosphere through "chemtrails", and that September 11 was a government job. Just as those beliefs don't lend any authority to those ideas, the fact that people believe the stuff in the "Heaven Can Wait" lends no validity to that.

I do of course understand that the box office success of the movie or the book being a best seller does not validate the boy's account as fact. But playing the angel's advocate, is it possible he's telling the truth? Unlike the book being discussed in this post, this (Heaven Is For Real) boy's experience has not been discovered to be a fraud - so what if? I do agree with you Eric that "kids sometime pick up information from parents without the parent being aware of it", but there is that chance that he never heard them discuss the miscarriage or the great grandpa. If that were the case, I'd be interested in the case whether I was a believer or non believer in an afterlife. I am as it is, curious.

By Lt. Wassabewabe (not verified) on 22 Jan 2015 #permalink

And Eric, I dare you to play: 24, 7, 38, 15 and 31 for tomorrow's lottery numbers!!!

By Lt. Wassabewabe (not verified) on 22 Jan 2015 #permalink

Sean T,

“in science it is person who introduces new explanations that must justify their explanation”

Well, yeah. That’s why I asked the question. I would think there is very little actual knowledge about what happens in the brain during death.
-
“We know that people die. Therefore, we know that their brains shut down. That’s a scientifically valid explanation for what people experience as NDE’s. Nothing new is needed for that explanation.”

Well no, because while everybody dies, not everyone has NDE’s. They are a distinct phenomena.
-
“If you want to instead propose that NDE’s are caused by interaction with God, the burden of proof is on YOU to justify your explanation..”

I don’t have any proposals or explanations, and only limited curiosity about this subject.

===

eric,

“I showed you what you asked for.”

You did? My question was in reference to your statement above:

“There is no definitive proof that NDE’s are anything more than the neural signaling of a brain shutting down.”

The article you linked to doesn’t mention death, NDE’s or brains shutting down. It is about hallucinations, which are typically associated with consciousness, not things that people can recall after near-death unconsciousness.
-
“information you couldn’t possibly have known”

That is the more interesting aspect of NDE’s. I’m not sure that every single case can be easily dismissed as fraud of some sort.

But playing the angel’s advocate, is it possible he’s telling the truth?

Sure it's possible. Its also possible there are fairies in my garden. And in both cases, I'm going to need more than just an unconfirmable eyewitness account before I believe.

The article you linked to doesn’t mention death, NDE’s or brains shutting down. It is about hallucinations, which are typically associated with consciousness, not things that people can recall after near-death unconsciousness.

You got me. I merely provided a materialistic explanation for how changes in brain chemicals can lead to phenomena such as seeing lights and such. But I didn't find an article where a scientist says "...and this explains NDEs nyah nyah nyah."

Given that you find my partial information and related-but-not-perfect research article insufficient, imagine how unconvincing I find your lack of any supporting research at all.

People have NDEs - that is pretty clear. Do NDEs mean the person has gone to "heaven" (whatever heaven is) - that is completely unclear. You do see the difference Phil, no?

By Michael Fugate (not verified) on 22 Jan 2015 #permalink

There's no science at the link you gave, Phil. You do realize that don't you? Or doesn't it matter? A radiation oncologist, a cardiologist, and the author of "Proof of Heaven"?

Why do you expect anyone to take them seriously? Because they fooled you?

What interested me is that each culture has it own "afterlife." As before, does that mean more than one God? If your partner is from a different culture, do you get to spend the afterlife together? So many questions.

By Michael Fugate (not verified) on 22 Jan 2015 #permalink

Phil,

How do we know that not everyone has NDE's? Perhaps those who don't report them either forget them, weren't close enough to brain shut down to experience them, had some health issue causing their near death that prevented them from having them, or some other explanation. Besides, you do realize, right, that the subset of people who do have NDE's is likely not very representative of humanity in general. Most people who get to a near-death state don't recover to tell us about what they've experienced. Most end up in a state where they can't report anything at all.

And I don't believe that there isn't much information about what happens to the brain upon death. I'm no expert, so I could be wrong (and I'm too lazy to search for it myself), but I'd expect that there's plenty of research about what happens to the brain at death. What would be lacking, for the obvious reason that gathering such information would be very difficult, is information about the conscious experiences of people just before their deaths. Those who do experience NDE's can provide some information on this, but as I've mentioned above, gathering information of this type tends to be very difficult since most people who could potentially supply the information end up dead before they can do so.

Michael Fugate,

“What interested me is that each culture has it own “afterlife.” “

This is what makes me think that the experiences are probably not about anything external.

===

Sean T,

“What would be lacking, for the obvious reason that gathering such information would be very difficult…”

Yeah, there are limits on data retrieval, even when humans die in relatively controlled circumstances.

Malarkey: malarkey

Irony works in mysterious ways;)