For temples and shrines to be of any use, they must be known about. For a sermon to be able to convert people, you necessarily have to bring in people not already part of the faith...
...In the end, you can choose: secrecy, or power over the commoners. That's the tradeoff you have to make.
Which are the trade-offs I had hoped that my suggestions reflect. The difference is that you could build up *some* degree of influence or power secretly, albeit to a very limited extent.
You're right about a secret society being better if you just want a small cult of nobles. I guess what I'm really looking for is some expanded options for religions that are persecuted in places to secretly build up small numbers of followers, including both commoners and nobles. Or alternately, for a new religion to start out being secretive while it gathers support to, say, displace the current state religion. The preponderance of relatively shallow 'state' religions has been griped about elsewhere. I would like to think that some of the features I suggested might encourage or enable challenges to those religions. Allow a rival religion to get a little something going before taking the fight into the open.
