Now, esoteric schools were not places where you went to receive teachings. They meant school as in school of fish. A common image for them was a beehive. They were a community of workers. Everywhere they went, they would hide in plain view, so that externally they seemed like everyone else; but internally, the esoteric knowledge was being transmitted. They no longer had a city. After Ce Acatl, the Toltecs became perennial strangers in a strange land. When the Christians came, the Toltecs were already adepts at hiding. Why? Maybe it started from trying to hide from Tezcatlipoca. Maybe they were following an ancient law that says the esoteric can only come up for a portion of time and then must go back into hiding. Maybe the format of the sacred temple of antiquity had to do with the sacred architecture that is capable of bringing in higher consciousness, much like the scent of a flower brings the beehive; and this architecture was used in the building of a city, the formation of an esoteric school, the training of a body and a mind, and even the mandate of a culture to blend in order to survive a long night of centuries of darkness. In all cases, an esoteric inner circle had to be maintained and hidden behind the layers of an internal culture and an outward layer that can survive in the culture they reside. In this way, the Toltecs passed the sacred knowledge on.
Read more on my upcoming book: Teachings of a Toltec Survivor
Many into the Occult today are looking for secrets and don’t understand that the teachings had to remain hidden; only because they were heretical, and not some miracle formula of supernatural capacity. Such claims really belonged to the inquisitors that sought to make people fear the heretics, so that they could be rooted out. The actual teachings were simply different from the canonical teachings of exoteric religion, and the work was far simpler than one would surmise. But for fear of their persecutors, the Occult had to go occult or underground. This unfortunately added an aura of mystery and glamour that still attracts many, that come looking for the supernatural secrets to power that have never existed. They are fooled by the Trickster. The superior being comes to this dilemma and finds profound insight. The inferior being remains bequiled and chases fool’s gold to the end of his or her life, with some maybe giving up the pursuit to return to their exoteric religion.
Life is full of mystery and the universe is a vast unknown. Why look for “secrets” when the bounty is all around, and deep within? There is no need for secret knowledge, nor for secrecy in wisdom. As you say, only out of necessity is that there has been historical need to hide. But to the true seeker, all doors are open.