[Hordriss]

Re: the posthumous Boone: we have had a big pointer about the nature of those apparitions, namely "ghost-Yemi's" contemptuous parting words to Eko: "You speak to me as if I were your brother" (heavily implying that he is not, in any real sense). The ghosts and visions could, ultimately, all be a form of spiritual propaganda designed to manipulate the Losties - a supernatural version of Ben's own favoured conditioning technique ("Same way I get anybody to do anything. I find out what he's emotionally invested in, and I exploit it").

However, if that was the case, it would strongly suggest that the Island and/or Jacob had in fact turned against the Others, and was "grooming" selected Losties to take over their original purpose (whatever that may have been. Alpert certainly seems to feel they have lost sight of their objectives, and Ben's relationship with the Invisible Man seems enigmatically unpromising at best). Perhaps Ben was very right to fear Locke as a potential usurper, and all-too aware of the justness of his "Pharisee" accusation, bearing in mind that in assuming lordship of the Dharma colony, virtually intact, and taking over their various nasty devices, drugs and research projects, Ben - like other revolutionaries before him - has in a large sense become the thing that he set out to destroy.