How much esotericism is too much ?

We're all "initiated" into a general cultural knowledge base, and then into progressively more narrow knowledge bases as determined by education level and group affiliations. So we all have some degree of esoteric knowledge, i.e. knowledge that not everyone else possesses.

Some esoteric symbols (for example, the AMORC Rose-Croix-Ankh-Pyramid design on the left) are vague enough to be appreciated for aesthetic reasons, and for individuals to project their own personal meanings onto them. You don't have to be a high-degree initiate of AMORC in order to make something out of that symbol, even if you don't know precisely what the initiated have learned about it.

On the other, consider the Rose-Croix design on the right. It's esoteric symbolism is more detailed, and thus more impenetrable to outsiders. It's less likely to be adopted by someone who just came across it on the internet and liked how it looks. You'd want to know what all the stuff on there actually means.

That might serve as an enticement to join a fraternal organization that promises to reveal its mysteries to you, but it might also make that organization's membership suspect. Putting yourself out there as part of a secretive, select group can make you a target for conspiracy theories and charges of elitism.

Wearing a shirt with E=mc² on it says one thing about you ; wearing a shirt with string theory equations on it says something else.

Both the esoteric cross and the esoteric equation communicate specific information, but only to the elite who have been inducted into the Great Mysteries. Who knows what they're really up to behind closed doors ?

That's the question the uninitiated will always ask themselves, and the answer usually isn't anything good for the initiates. Mystery schools still have to walk a fine line between exciting interest and inciting envy.