The Map of Heaven: How Science, Religion, and Ordinary People Are Proving the Afterlife

Following up his book Proof of Heaven, Doctor Alexander gives us another book on the same subject. But if you expect an actual map, you will be disappointed. There is no map. There is not even coordinates for us to train high power telescopes on the area in question and see what’s what. That’s too bad, because I wanted to be prepared. I wanted to know the lay of the land, the people to talk with about accommodations, what’s to eat and drink, and so forth. I enjoy playing the piano and I was hoping for information about the availability of a Bosendorfer Imperial piano, or if that is not available, how about a Steinway D, artistic series?Instead of a map of heaven, we get a rehashed description of the vision of heaven that Doctor Alexander claims he had while he was in coma with meningitis. That vision in this, his latest book, has been enhanced and expanded. Memories usually fade with time, but not his. Perhaps the enthusiasm for the message, and its many repetitions at lectures, interviews, and book signings, has caused the Doctor to embellish his previous vision with more details and a happier landscape.So, what does heaven look like? It is not the happy hunting ground, nor is it the long house of the American Indian where you eat strawberries and smoke tobacco. It is not the heaven that so many suicide religious nuts hope to get to. It is a heaven that seems a tad Christian. It looks pleasant, with lots of light, green rolling hills, choirs of angels, and wonderful music, which is called the “Spinning Melody.” Doctor Alexander tells us that the Spinning Melody is “pure white light that rescued me from the Earthworm’s-Eye View, serving as a portal into the ultra-real Gateway Valley… through higher dimensions” (page 139, Map of Heaven). Huh? If I heard that kind of talk in psychiatry clinic, I would be thinking of possible psychosis or borderline personality disorder. Does he actually believe this stuff or he hoaxing us? Is he like Alex Marlarkey, The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven? Alex confessed, “I did not die… I said I went to heaven because I thought I would get me attention.” Tyndale House, Alex’s publisher has pulled his book, which sold over 100,000 copies and was on the New York Times List of best sellers. Heaven might not be real but the money made from writing about heaven is real.On page 139 of Map, Doctor Alexander tells us that one of the most common questions after his presentation is whether he remembers the music, especially the Spinning Melody. The answer is no. He has lost the memory of those magical sounds and he has been working with others to try to recover the melody.During his illness Dr. Alexander believed that his doctors and his wife Holley (now ex-wife Holley) were trying to kill him. He believed he was flying. He believed he was sky diving. He believed the Florida police were chasing him. He believed ninja photographers were on cable pulleys (what?). He knows those visions and those delusions were crazy, but he still insists that his vision of heaven was real.The subtitle Map sets another stage for disappointment. Nowhere do we find scientific evidence proving the afterlife. To prove something, you need evidence and that evidence needs to be relevant and adequate. The only evidence submitted is Doctor Alexander’s visions while in coma. That is hardly sufficient evidence for such an important conclusion. In fact, a lot of the overly long introduction in Map is a diatribe about scientists not taking the spirit world seriously and demanding more material evidence of its existence, preferably something that can be measured, touched, tested, and examined in detail. Those scientists are, according to the author, too concentrated on material things. According to Doctor Alexander, “Love, Beauty, Goodness, Friendship, In the world view of materialist science, there is not room for treating these things as realities. (page XVII Map of Heaven)” Whoa! Is he kidding? There are plenty of scientific studies of these things in the literature of science. Consider the studies of those dolphins who refuse to eat after the death of a mate. Consider the studies of those geese who search for the lost mate until they themselves become disoriented and die. The scientists I know all believed in love, beauty, and friendship. To say that scientists don’t believe in such things is silly. Doctor Alexander’s view of organized religion appears just as dismal as his view of science. He claims that dogmatic religion resolutely ignored near death experiences as moments of apparent contact with departed ones.As a neurologist, I would say that near death experiences are natural and not evidence of afterlife or higher power. They are in fact precisely consistent with oxygen deficit that occurs as blood flow to the brain decreases. People whose blood pressure dropped suddenly report “everything went white” before they faint. Those bleeding externally or internally say “all the color drained out” at the moment when blood loss goes critical.An interesting feature of Map is testimonials. These all have a similar structure, tone, pace, and diction, as if written by the same person. They tell of sick people who died. The plot is that something bad happens and then a mysterious thing happens that puts some hope into the bad situation. For instance, Don Entich (page 40) tells about his feeling that his dead wife, Lorraine, came back to him in the form of a monarch butterfly. Another correspondent notices a black dot in the bedroom and assumes his dead wife is back. But how do we know for sure that the butterfly is not, well, just a butterfly? There are some in my backyard as I write this review and my wife is still alive. And why is the butterfly necessarily the spirit of the dead wife? What’s the evidence? And why is the black dot not just a black dot? A black dot could be a scotoma. There are many causes of scotoma, including the aura of migraine with or without headache. Conclusion: The sad experiences of ordinary people and their reactions to them are natural and probably explained by active imaginations and the deeply human wishes to have their loved one return.Because Doctor Alexander paraded medical and scientific qualifications as a reason for us to believe him, it is now my unpleasant duty to examine his credentials. He is not licensed to practice medicine in any state. His Massachusetts’ license lapsed so the medical board there will not give access to his profile. Virginia and North Carolina do have his profile available as public documents. March 23, 2009 the Virginia Board of Medical Examiners fined Doctor Alexander $3,500 and publicly reprimanded him for unethical and unprofessional conduct. On July 10, 2007 he did a disk operation and spinal fusion at the wrong level and neglected to inform the patient of his mistake. A payment was made for that mistake on July 9, 2009. A similar mistake occurred June 29, 2009 and that too was paid for. August 25, 2003 he did a retromastoid craniotiomy for microvascular decompression for hemifacial spasm. The operation did not go well and recovery was poor. Payment for that was made on October 3, 2011. August 22, 2002 he left a foreign body in a patient’s neck. Payment for that took place on March 9, 2009. June 21, 2010, the North Carolina Medical Board (NCMB) made him sign a consent order in which he admitted unethical and unprofessional conduct. That order is six pages and may be viewed on the board’s website.Whew! That’s a lot of bad medicine and a signed confession admitting unethical and unprofessional conduct. Knowing how things are arranged in medical land, I think, those mistakes and unethical behaviors are just the tip of the iceberg.On the basis of probability, the existence of an afterlife is remote. The dead don’t come back. If God wanted us to know about heaven why can’t she just arrive on a white cloud and make an announcement on all the TV and radio stations. That would shape us up fast and would make a believer of me.

This is certainly a good book, but I felt a bit let down. After reading Proof of Heaven and hearing Eben speak in person about "the rest of the story", I was hoping for more. Eben has been, in my view, wrongfully attacked by Esquire and others who focused on his personal fallibilities, which he had not properly covered because his publisher wanted to zero in only on his proof of heaven's existence, and sell more books. So I wanted to read more about the rest, and how they related to his profound experience. Yes, he may not have been such a good doctor, and had some personal problems, etc., but behind all that was a guy who had really wanted to fly, to be an astronaut. (I write this as a former Navy jet pilot whose father had wanted him to become a doctor like he and his father were. Thank heavens I didn't.) Yet out of a sense of duty and loyalty to his adoptive father, a neurosurgeon who even gave him his own first name, he force-fed himself into the profession that had been chosen for him. Can he be blamed for being uncomfortable as a square peg in a round hole?After his NDE, I believe he wrote about three times as much as what actually appeared the first time around. Yet in this very short book, Eben doesn't appear to draw much on what was initially left behind. Once you accept that there is a Light out there that we all came from, whether you call it Heaven or something else, you want to know how anyone can bring some of that Light back to earth. Because that's where we need its healing power, right now. (A book I read recently, Through Heaven's Gate and Back by Lee Thornton, did just that, beautifully, by comparison.) In The Map of Heaven, there are a lot of NDE stories (not necessarily validated as far as I can tell) that relate various experiencers' feelings, as individuals. This didn't do much for me. I wanted to read about what Eben's NDE did for him. I wanted to hear about how it enabled him to confront his demons, how it helped (or didn't help) him to find his real self, and make sense of where he had been. I suspect he has all of this within him, and I had hoped he would share it. Otherwise it's just another NDE book. Maybe next time.

Read and be amazed...I was. After reading his first book, which I recommend to help understand this one, I couldn't wait to read this follow up book. Dr Alexander is a no nonsense brain surgeon from the US and his description and explanation of what happened to him will leave you quite honestly amazed. Written in an intelligent but easy way he seems to unravel an area that so many before have tried but not quite managed, he has in this book. I believe these two books he has written contain information that can only have been written through an experience, we mere mortals may struggle with some of it but Dr Alexander knows he is writing an 'account of a journey' that most of us have yet to undertake. He writes not to shock or scare people but to help those that may have had a NDE or similar experience to understand that 'spirituality' is a normal state but one which most of us have lost over time, which he helps to bring back. This is by far the best book of its kind that I have ever read because you know deep inside that what he experienced is as close to Heaven that we can get.....for now.

When a scientist , and in particular , a neurosurgeon tells you something amazing and profound , it is best to pay attention. This book gives me hope. Life is so fascinating . Hope springs from its pages.

After reading this book you realise how much more you have to remember. Wonderful and deep thinking, thanks very much for putting it into print.

A riveting read, helped by being written so well, given the very difficult subject matter. I'd read Proof of Heaven, which I would recommend before reading this. Excellent.

Wish there were more books like this!