Some thoughts, related directly and tangentially to the matter at hand:
Joe said:
Apparently, those that achieved the "great work" are "vanishingly rare", and since achieving such a goal suggests disappearing in a "puff of smoke", there is probably not much chance to brag about it, at least not to any of us!
Given the nature of the general law and since most teachers who really KNOW are attacked mercilessly, anyone who did achieve the great work would teach in a very low key manner OSIT. Would such beings want to advertise their presence? If you went looking for a Sufi shaykh, you would probably walk right past the shoemaker, and miss a great opportunity... although that doesn't seem to apply in the case of
our shaykh, Laura, if I may call her that :) Given what the masses have done to various teachers down through the ages, it's a miracle that Laura teaches and publishes what she does, and I for one think her courage in this is awe-inspiring. Maybe this is why the names of those who have achieved the great work haven't come down to us through history.
Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel are said to have achieved the great work. See Laura's
Secret History pp 48 - 50. Certainly Laura relates some very interesting information about them.
I found this in Mouravieff which seemed of interest:
Mouravieff said:
Each human being, then, is born with his own particular film. This represents the field of action in which man is called to apply his conscious efforts. The repetition of the film is not reincarnation, although these two notions are often confused.
[...]
By reincarnation we must understand a phenomenon of a very different order.
[...]
True reincarnation [...] occurs entirely in time, and belongs integrally to the domain of the Real[...].
[...] the perfect, free, Individuality, who is able, if need arises, to reincarnate consciously in Time.
Mouravieff, Gnosis, Book 1
I think this suggests that if someone vanished in a puff of smoke, so to speak, having achieved the culmination of the work, they could consciously choose to return at a point in time where their services were needed. Quite understandable if they had mastered time and space. Whether such a being would have to re-achieve the great work in their new lifetime is a question I cannot answer. Indeed, whether this would involve being born and growing up in the usual way, or some other process, is also unanswerable. Maybe there are some adepts on this planet that no-one knows about. How would we know them? Perhaps one can only 'see' them when one is ready to see the unseen, or perhaps when they allow themselves to be seen.