Consider, if you will, the history of Catholicism. While Catholicism isn't primarily a mystery cult, the same structure of appeal has been employed. Having occasional rituals, catchphrases, in a language that the participants don't speak? That helps keeps power in the hands of the elite, whether or not that was the intention. Or, back before the Protestant reformation - when the holy text itself was outside the grasp of the masses, and in the wrong language.
The possession of hidden or confusing knowledge grants the holder authority. But the knowledge need not be religious. Scientists and academics slowly aspire towards the social role that priests have held in the past. Confess to your psychologist, and consult your engineer. The knowledge of these people, however, is arcane not because it is concealed (though there is a little obfuscation of language); it is arcane and confusing because it is dense. The knowledge and the means of proving the knowledge are not, and should not be separated, in this way of knowing - one must cite sources; it ought to be possible to track each claim to the source.
But if this is a blanket truth, then what about the hermetic adept, the practitioner of alchemy, and the goetic summoner - shouldn't they have claims to authority somehow?
Well, in their circles, they may; but they made an error that took them from having power among the mighty to living in the small places. They decided to show their sources and make claims to proof, where none existed. They gave up on the mystery of the faithful initiate, claiming the mantle of dense but provable truth that belongs rightly in the hands of the scientific or even purely mechanical adept. The man who can fix your car is an adept, and we have learned, these days, to expect serious and visible results of our adepts.
In these days, seeing the power of our adepts, we slowly learn to question the value of initiates, too. Do you want to know the secret of the Templars? It will give you power! No? How about the secret of the Scientologists? Well, it's good for a chuckle, at the very least.
We, as people, can imagine a world in which can catch the scent of manufactured mysteries, and look on them with grave suspicion. Where the man with an arcane secret is always assumed to be selling something. It's a healthy world; it's where we primarily want to exist. But it's not a poetic, adventurous world; it's not where we want to live.
I think this conflict can be resolved, in most cases, by transforming our manufactured mysteries into artistry for the mind and the society. That lovely lady dancing with the veils has a secret, and she won't be revealing all her mysteries for you - her mystery is a device, wielded with skill.
It may be that one day, many of the mysteries of faith will be employed with equal grace. I hope so; as absolutes, as gates and demands and oaths, they will surely fail.
