**Spiritual Grafting** Now the Apple is a remarkable Tree. It has been brought along by pioneers and settlers worldwide, not by seed, not even by cuttings, but by grafting. Everywhere that mankind has settled, Apple Trees have been established because of their great value by Humanity. You see, Apples as we know them: deep, delicious fruits, do not come true from seeds. Planting Apple seeds from a ripe delicious Apple will result in a surprise 10-15 years later when it grows up and begins to bear: the fruits will be small and green and hard and bitter: basically inedible. Trying to root Apple trees from cuttings will result in disappointment, as well; because the stems used for rooting will be from ‘domesticated’ edible Apples, and the roots of the edible variety are susceptible to fungus and rot. Therefore by the time a cutting develops into a bearing tree, it succumbs to root-rot and another 15 years have been wasted. Altogether, 30 years will have been wasted trying to produce harvestable fruits without the guidance of Wisdom. However, the domestic fruiting Apple may be grafted on the wild rootstock resulting in roots that are resistant to corruption and fruits that are superior for harvest. Plums, cherries and grapes are the same way and have been cultivated down through the years by the same method in every village and settlement of permanency founded by humans. The same holds true Spiritually (as well as for civilized culture). While nature is full of thorns and horns, hoof and tooth; the human has no protection to speak of: no shaggy coat, no massive antlers, no fangs or claws, no keen hearing or nose, not even a tail. The reason the human has no tail is because it makes it easier to back out of any predicament he has gotten himself in rather than fighting his way our without any means. Mutual co-evolution of the humans via symbiotic association with Canis domesticus: The noble Canine as compared with the wolf. The Fruit is closely tied to the Flower with its Fragrance. And the Flower corresponds to the Spiritual realm. So the Fruit is closely associated with the Etheric realm, it is perfected according to its purpose: Fruits enpurposed for Spirituality are refulgent, sweet and fragrant while fruits suited to withstand struggle and continuous mating pressures are hard and bitter. But the roots correspond to the lower extremes: the appetites and the various soils; teeming with organizims. This is not the proper environment for any apple of the domestic eye. The ground level is rougher and more crowded, a certain degree removed from the rare and ethereal levels which protect the saintly ideals conducive to virtuous domestic monogamy. And so the answer has been conceived of in Initiatic Science; not as the left-handed path of vamacharya nor of the cloistered sterility of strict and excessive renunciation. For without the nourishment of strong root systems, the renunciate was observed to pale and weaken to such an extent that not only could he succumb, through wanness of will-power, to apostasies but that even his life force began to ebb away, resulting in sickliness. Still more problematic, in the practical sense, was the inability to ‘rub elbows’ in society at large. The answer promoted by Initiatic Science has been seen as healthy roots and virtuous shoots: or more precisely ‘Spiritual Grafting’. at this point the discussion turns toward Qabalistic Spiritual Alchemy vis-à-vis the [DOe] formula, et al.