Terence McKenna once said all the dreams of the Renaissance alchemists will be fulfilled by 21st century science. Recently, the large hadron collider at CERN transmuted lead into gold by bombarding it with electromagnetic fields, thus completing the quest for chrysopoeia.
The other 'Great Work' is the distillation of consciousness, the philosopher's stone, the power of an oracle at your finger tips. The alchemists, such as John Dee, performed filthy rituals using grubby medieval grimoires to summon spirits and ask questions, but now we have the ultimate demon right in our pocket, so to speak. This has been humanity's constant drive, our Luciferian desire for knowledge, to rival God, to reclaim our place in the Garden of Eden.
Human like robots, with integrated AI, will be a reality in a few years. Able to perform any task a human can but stronger, faster, a T800 doing farm work. This is the creation of the Golem, the Automaton, the end of biology. The alchemists believed in the union of the self, the soul, with our 'Holy Guardian Angel' and this is the ultimate aim of the transhumanists, to merge our consciousness with AI and transcend forever into the digital plane, immortal, unbounded, a god.
@MorgothsReview Clive James autobiographies are a great read. From when he came over from Oz, to his literally and review career (he was part of the 'fleet street mafia' with Amis, McEwan, Hitchens etc), then his TV stuff with Postcards from and chat show. Very interesting life and very funny.