Did Jacob touch Michael? by twarzer

As we now know, the candidate, person who was touched by Jacob, can't kill him/herself. I wonder how does it apply to Michael trying to commit a suicide back in S4 and Tom telling him "the island is not done with you yet". When put in that way we could assume that he meant Jacob, and therefore Christian Shephard and Libby off-island visions were manifestation of Jacob ("you can go now Michael").

Notice that some manifestations were following bunch of whispers. Ben said to Danielle in S5 "whenever you hear whispers you run away". Now, one of the manifestations that was following whispers, was Christian Shephard on Kahana. I believe now that both Jacob and MIB can/could manifest as dead people. Maybe the only difference are whispers before manifestation.

We know, that MIB couldn't leave the island, so it couldn't be him who appeared in Jack's FF in S4, which could mean that, indeed, Jacob is another smoke monster (because the smoke alarm was on).

It would also appear that Jacob talked to Ben before scene in a foot in last season's finale. If the theory about manifestation following whispers is true, then Jacob took Ben's mother form in S3 Ben-centric episode.

Another interesting point is - how would Ben know how to summon black Smoke Monster? We've seen him playing with water in secret room of his house in Dharmaville (my mate once pointed out that the murky water in the pool in Temple could be the same water that summoned Smoke Monster in S4). If Smoke Monster is Jacob's opponent, then why would Others summon it, call it a "judging system"? Wouldn't that mean that Jacob CAN'T judge them and MIB can?