This is a concept as old as the Gnostics and expressed most vividly within the concept of the Holy Spirit.

If anything was invented, it was the Catholic Clergy as spiritual interlocutor. The entire Catholic/Protestant schism is predicated on reformers in the early Protestant sects denying Papal Infallibility, the sacrament of Confession, and the need for a singular Apostolic Church to officiate over the blessing of Communion.

And the Thirty Years War that followed was an attempt by the church to reassert control through military force, when dogmatic religious assertions failed to sway the public any longer.