There are 4 major parts of man: soul, spirit, astral body, and physical body.
When the man dies this is what happens to the parts in my POV:
Soul: goes to either heaven or hell
Spirit: Wanders the earth, these are the ghosts that are seen
Astral body: Reincarnates into another person
Physical Body: Lays in the ground until it is resurrected for the Final Judgement
Soul and Physical Body may be controversial, but without going into Christianity, give me your thoughts :)!
I myself believe that the soul and spirit are the same things, which go into heaven or hell (christian talkin')or remain in purgatory (which is what you see as ghosts walking the earth.
This is a very interesting theory. I, who always believed soul, spirit, and astral body to be the same thing, always thought that my view of the afterlife was incompatible with the traditional view except for the most basic concepts. However, I still find it hard to believe that the soul, spirit, and astral body are not the same thing. You seem to basically believe that the spirit is an afterimage of a dead person, the astral body is inherited by another body, and the soul is what's left over of the mind that lived in the body and is judged by God. To me, this isn't the way the Universe works fundamentally, though your theory is definitely worth pursuing if you wish. If you have any "evidence" (thoughts on how the Universe works), please use such to support your theory. Thank you for thinking outside the box.
Thank you FaithSeeker and everyone else who has taken time to read this :).
I don't have any solid evidence yet, but these seem like they all exist. I know of one of my past lives, and many people see spirits. My personal beliefs obligate me to accept the soul and body part. I am actually currently intrigued by a passage in teh book of Daniel where the author says that an angel came out of "the Ulai". I am pretty sure this may be the astral plane.