Why was alchemy practiced?

People have always experimented with the mixing of different things to come up with useful chemicals and materials. Sometimes they came up with things that were useful. as time wore on those that were most talented with this way of thinking were constantly coming up with new useful mixtures and compounds. They were our first chemists. needless to say one of the things that they were always trying to produce was gold. and failure is something that tends to be remembered by those that are unable or unwilling to participate.