A soul which has passed from the earth, and is in the spirit world, can still live on the earth in one way, and that is by obsessing another soul. Very often people have explained this idea wrongly, when they have said that spirit takes hold of a dead body, and, entering into it, makes use of it. The body once dead is dead; it has entered upon the process of returning to its own origin. It has lost that magnetism which attracts the soul and holds it, in order to allow it to function in the physical body. If the dead body had magnetism, then it would not have allowed the soul to return; it would have held it back. For it is the body which holds the soul to the earth; the soul has a pull from within which draws it continually towards its source. But there are many living dead in the good or bad sense of the words. It is in these cases that a single-pointed spirit takes hold of their minds and bodies as its own instrument, using them to the best advantage; this is generally known as obsession. In point of fact there is no soul which has not experienced obsession in the true sense of the word; for there are moments in everyday life when those on the other side take the souls on the earth as their medium through which to experience life on the physical plane.