I'm sorry. Reading Montague is an inspiration and I'm rather obliged to share some of the information. For example - The almost worldwide belief in the incorruptible nature of Saints (and there are indeed countless instances of Saints being exhumed and their bodies are in fine state of preservation which is taken as proof of their divine grace) - and Buddhists have similar traditions, and then there is the tradition in the church that the bodies of those excommunicated from the church are as well incorruptible. And - of course, the example that should have first sprung to your mind - Vampires are as well held as incorruptible, the animating force and thirst for blood keeps them bound to the earthly plane.
First and Last - Saints and Vampires - I'll leave alone, but for the second instance - those excommunicated from the church, there are endless examples of Priests or Bishops or Cardinals bowing before the wishes of family members and reversing excommunications via ceremony and the body then crumbling to dust at the instance the "Loosening" is complete. This is standard Vampire fare as well, the body crumbles to dust as soon as it is exposed to whatever ceremony is designed to banish it.
Now this, of course, leads one to wonder what circumstance would lead the Church to rescind an excommunication. And - disregarding the plain facts of the matter and dealing with the metaphor - why would changing your mind in the present free a spirit kept imprisoned in it's corpse by some charm or spell laid long before? This is but the stepping stone to another question - that there are many, many examples where - on a metaphorical level at least, some action done in the present - Usually a religious ceremony - can undo or negate something that happened in the past - and by this I don't mean a general change in attitude, in which we adopt a more generous or Christian view of the situation, it seems that there is a genuine belief that the past is not "set in stone" - that the charity of the present can somehow alter it, ...think of all the ancestor cults, that make offerings to their dead relations, and while their relations are long since gone not only are the living believed to benefit from their communion - think of the Chinese, and "Hell Money", burned offering so that their ancestors can bribe the officials of Hell. And consider the Mormons, who take it as their duty to baptize all their ancestors, and keep record, so that they too can go to heaven...
These things confuse me - I think they would confuse anyone, but, and while I may be interpreting it wrong, I believe it suggests that spirituality realizes or acknowledges that at some level our linear perception of time might be wrong, and that the present and future might have as much impact on the past as we believe the past has had on the present...
It's curious, not because it's the first time I've considered it - after all, it's a commonly bandied-about theory in Physics, but - just noting how far back it's roots go. That what science often discovers is just a reframing or rewording of very old concepts.
Just a theory. Not even a theory, really, but there's a lot of pages left to read and there will be plenty more loose ends to tie up I'm sure.