Death and life intertwining, illness as metaphor, these things have been thought about for a very long time, even when not so well articulated as you have done.
    One thing which has had a much shorter life is this instant internet communication and the worldwide searching a la Faust, for any or all among a multitude of interests, or even to develop a new interest just because it is now possible.
    Has anyone spoken of internet chat as a metaphor for communication with or between the dead? But with transformations that are there by necessity?
    For example, there is less interest, presumably, in contacting the soul of someone you never knew personally, when attempting a seance, but in channeling, one accepts being the medium so that a stranger can spread his messages or wisdom using you as a physical vehicle; while, in internet surfing, emailing, and chatting/querying, for the sheer sake of doing a conforming social technique and looking into a hobby or learning a field's images and texts, by necessity this happens mostly through strangers and mostly through those no more wise than oneself, though they may have a different set of expertises.
    In effect, you are channeling yourself to whomever may want to listen now, or from the archive, in the future, and in return, those in the internet ether are channeling a bit of their consciousness to you, and the grace you may develop/your netiquette and beyond it, your scope in responding, is very much what could be imagined to be the necessary aspects of disembodied communication, which includes communication between two dead humanoids as well as one dead and one living.
     In this sense, the internet is more spiritual than a seance, as the medium in a seance has to ablate their own conscious experience to provide a channel for unusual communications to occur, while with the internet, the channel is provided gratis and is now taken for granted, so we have only our own limitations to blame when we do not succeed in communicating, sharing, seeking answers, learning, being inspired by historical examples and unusual visually guided or presented learning opportunities. The temptation of Faust has been multiplied to take on all comers.
      That is fairly democratic, and not to be denied.