What is a Mystery School?

[Aion]

Well yeah, that was the core of that misunderstanding but is also due partly to magicians falsely attributing it as such. I actually haven't examined the exact 'lineage' of that change in ideas, but I feel it was actually a misinterpretation of Victorian occultism which took a novel approach to 'dark' practices. I think that was the time that the idea of 'black magic' became really widespread as an idea and threat. There have been fears of dark magicians and shamans for a long time but it was in that time that the concept became somewhat regularized.

But there really were dark magicians as well. What I'm referring to is that the fundamentalist religious people thought that any magician was dark, that it was all 'satanic.' They were so fear-based and rigid in their thinking that they couldn't tell the difference.

Add to that, that there were mystery schools within the religions too. Rumor has it that the Pope's bathtub is painted with astrological symbols. At the higher levels, the religions have the knowledge, but it's kept secret and only a watered-down version is fed to the masses. The 'mystery schools' were secret attempts to share this knowledge without the permission of the religious leaders in power.

In an effort to thwart the dissemination of occult knowledge (which would empower the masses and they couldn't allow that), the religious leaders taught that all occult knowledge was evil and anyone engaging in it would be deemed a heretic and put to death.

But there were other reasons for secrecy too. It was thought that occult secrets could be dangerous in the hands of people who weren't ready for it. Hence, the initiation process to weed out those who weren't ready.

...

I can imagine each school has its reasons for the degree of secrecy they keep. I mainly wanted to point out that 'Mystery' doesn't always refer to the secrecy. Those are all things I have read as well and in experience I'd say the reasons for secrecy are as varied as the intentions behind the schools.