It's All Malarkey; Publisher Pulls Book

Alex Malarkey,The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven, said this week that he made the whole story up.

“An Open Letter to Lifeway and Other Sellers, Buyers, and Marketers of Heaven Tourism, by the Boy Who Did Not Come Back From Heaven.”
Please forgive the brevity, but because of my limitations I have to keep this short.
I did not die. I did not go to Heaven.
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. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth. Anything written by man cannot be infallible.
It is only through repentance of your sins and a belief in Jesus as the Son of God, who died for your sins (even though he committed none of his own) so that you can be forgiven may you learn of Heaven outside of what is written in the Bible…not by reading a work of man. I want the whole world to know that the Bible is sufficient. Those who market these materials must be called to repent and hold the Bible as enough.
In Christ,
Alex Malarkey.”
Source

NPR published a good write up here: Boy Says He Didn't Go To Heaven; Publisher Says It Will Pull Book

Here are a few key background details of the story: Alex Malarkey was paralyzed at the age of 6 when he was in a car wreck. He then spent two months in a coma. He's now a teenager. The book lists him as a co-author along with his father, Kevin Malarkey.

Calling the book a "spiritual memoir," The Washington Post notes that it "became part of a popular genre of 'heavenly tourism,' which has been controversial among orthodox Christians."

HuffingtonPost has more on it. Alex Malarkey, 'The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven,' Admits He Made It All Up

Beth Malarkey, Alex's mother and caregiver, is divorced from Kevin Malarkey. She told the Patheos website that she was troubled by the book, and pointed to a blog post she wrote about it last April.

"It is both puzzling and painful to watch the book 'The Boy who Came Back from Heaven' to not only continue to sell, but to continue, for the most part, to not be questioned," Beth Malarkey wrote at the time. She said her son had not benefitted financially from the book.

a reply to: theNLBS
It's too bad as this was a nice story.

Just like anything though, so many false claims and outright lies tend to leave a bad taste in peoples mouths. Pretty much anything we discuss on ATS has its share of liars and lies. It's hard to take anyones claim seriously. I will wait for something to happen to me before I believe anymore.

Irony so thick you can cut it with a knife...

malarkey
[muh-lahr-kee]
noun, Informal.
1. speech or writing designed to obscure, mislead, or impress; bunkum:

originally posted by: rupertg
Irony so thick you can cut it with a knife...

malarkey
[muh-lahr-kee]
noun, Informal.
1. speech or writing designed to obscure, mislead, or impress; bunkum:

HAHA, right!

a reply to: theNLBS

it amuses me that the boy who lied for five years about going to heaven then presumes to instruct us on where truth may be found, aka the bible.

uh huh...guess we'll take that one with a barrel of salt.

a reply to: theNLBS

I was really bummed when I read it was a made up story,
not that I was familiar with it anyways, however,
it is these kinds of things that makes it very hard to find the legitimate stories.
Kind of like when Miss Cleo was found to be a fraud,
it set back the psychic community for a long time.
All of a sudden everyone was being accused of being a fake.

Poor kid( I feel bad for the kid),
and dumb parents.


s&f

a reply to: Darkblade71

you sound like you were surprised by this development. like it didnt occur to you that maybe it was all made up.

this stuff would happen more often if lying through your teeth about meeting god werent such a lucrative practice.

money carries more weight than honesty these days.

a reply to: TzarChasm

Before this I had never heard of the story,
so no, not surprised, just bummed.

These types of lies hurt those who really are searching to understand things.

originally posted by: Darkblade71
a reply to: TzarChasm

Before this I had never heard of the story,
so no, not surprised, just bummed.

These types of lies hurt those who really are searching to understand things.

better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie.

how does that red herring taste.

a reply to: theNLBS

also, i dont get why you needed to make a thread about this...unless you are promoting your show? because there is already a thread and you dont seem to have added anything new.

a reply to: TzarChasm

I agree with you there.

Truth always.

No red herring for me.

a reply to: theNLBS

I tend to lean toward what they refer to in "Torchwood" constantly.

After death, there is just "darkness".

It makes it much easier to understand that as a human being, my existence is no more important than any other life on this planet.

Also, it makes me a whole hell of a lot less scared to fight against corruption! Because there is one thing for certain for all of us on the day we are born! We WILL DIE!

I don't blame the boy. He was 6 years old and told a story. It's what kids do. It's dad and publishers who ran with it. What I wonder about is, who was making the money on the books and "ancillary products"? Apparently it isn't Alex who could use it with his life-long medical needs.

She (his mom) has also said that profits from the book haven't been going to Alex.

Also, Alex and his mom have apparently tried to speak up before. Way to take advantage of your kid, Dad. (Note, that's a lot of assumption on my part about who benefited from the whole thing.)

Now whenever people talk about near death or out of body experiences it will become synonymous with this fraud.

Very sad.

a reply to: TheBandit795

I recall when this story was fresh, years back and thinking that it did not match, at all, my OBE and NDE. Then again my experience was not pleasant nor Heavenly so, at th time, I kind of wrote it off as a childs innocence.

Now it turns out that it was a childs innocence, creativity, and opportunistic others.

As a person who has been clinically dead I can say this for sure - your awareness remains for some period of time after the body expires ( in my cause around twelve minutes or more ). Whether or not that awareness carries forward longer than that? I have no clue.

a reply to: TzarChasm

Yes, I thought there was a rule about not having multiple threads on the same topic?

Maybe they changed the rules, they don't seem to be applying it anymore.