As it is necessary in worldly things, so in spiritual things it is necessary also. And on that basis the religions -- whether the Christian religion or the Jewish religion or the Muslim religion or the Hindu religion -- on that hierarchical basis the religions have been built. And not only the religions but the esoteric schools, where from beginning to end there is the thought of equality, where there is the thought of raising the consciousness of each man to the highest degree of the perfectly democratic institution, even there to begin with there is hierarchy. But then there is a hierarchy of initiations and of initiators, a hierarchy which is intended, which is made to do its work. And all such dispositions as that of the saint and of the master and of the prophet belong to that hierarchy of the initiates.