Hence we find that underlying every ancient popular religion is the same Wisdom-Doctrine, one and identical, professed and practiced by the Initiates of every country. Among the followers of every religion there exists a genuine and sincere faith in the divine nature of their own particular prophet-savior. On the fact that Divine Men have incarnated to energize and inspire mankind in every age and clime. Priestly cunning has foisted on the credulous the One and Only Son of God, or the One and Only Prophet, or its equivalent. Claims which Krishna or Buddha, Jesus or Muhammed never made for Themselves or Their Teachings, the respective followers made and now make, under priestly guidance, to the debasement of Truth and the detriment of humanity.
Theosophists have the duty to deliver mankind from the clutches of organized priesthoods.
The first step towards this emancipation is the restoration of the knowledge of old that there exist no special privileges for any soul, nor are there any chosen peoples, but that Divine Instructors are Living Brothers with one aim, one purpose, one teaching, who reached Their stature of perfection by self-redeeming work and who teach all humanity without making distinctions of any kind soever. He is taught to believe in special privileges for himself through a belief in the uniqueness of his own prophet. There is hardly a religious institution in the modern world from the Vedic to the Buddhistic, from the Catholic to the Swedenborgian, which does not claim some kind of a unique place for its own particular savior. This erroneous notion is to be traced to the fact that in myths and legends characters like Krishna, Hercules, Pythagoras, Buddha, Jesus, Apollonius, are represented as divinely begotten Saviors. They are all tempted, persecuted and finally said to have been murdered at the end of the Rite of Initiation, i.e., in their physical personalities, of which they are supposed to have been rid forever after spiritual birth or resurrection.