If the medium died meantime, I should think that the spirit might find some trouble in dematerializing." "Is it not possible," said Paul, "that it might be unable to dematerialize at all?
Would not the medium's death close against it the only door by which it could return to the spirit-world, shutting it out in this life with us henceforth?
More than that: would not the already materialized spirit be in a position to succeed to the physical life which the medium relinquished?
Already possessed of a part of the medium's vitality, would not the remainder naturally flow to it when given up in death, and thus complete its materialization ?" "And give it an earthly body like ours ?" exclaimed Miss Ludington.
"Yes, like ours," replied Paul.

"I suppose it would simply take up its former life on earth where it had been left off, ceasing to possess a spirit's powers, and knowing only what and whom it knew at the point when its first life on earth had ceased." "After what I have seen to-night, nothing will ever seem impossible to me again," said Miss Ludington.
"As Miss Ludington suggests," observed Dr.Hull, "in spiritualism one soon ceases to consider whether a thing be wonderful or not, but only if it be true.

And so as to this matter.

Now, if the death of a medium should be absolutely instantaneous, the spirit might, indeed, be unable to dematerialize, and might even succeed to the medium's earth life, as you suggest.

The trouble with the theory--and it seems to me a fatal one--is, that death is almost never, if indeed it is ever, absolutely instantaneous but only comparatively so; and it seems to me that the least possible interval of time would be sufficient to enable the spirit to dematerialize.