Path: typhoon.sonic.net!not-for-mail Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.philosophy.taoism,talk.religion.misc,alt.mythology Subject: Re: Celestial Masters Historical question References: <5d873358.0108231726.520dc8c2@posting.google.com> <3b88a0b3@news.fullnet.com> <9mdlfi030tr@drn.newsguy.com> <3B8A6E96.4CBC4E9D@email.com> <3C841536.DF0F6EE2@nethere.com> From: xiwangmu Reply-To: spam@yronwode.com User-Agent: nn/6.6.0 Lines: 41 Message-ID: <1gOm8.6575$44.50937@typhoon.sonic.net> Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 22:30:21 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 208.201.242.18 X-Complaints-To: abuse@sonic.net X-Trace: typhoon.sonic.net 1016836221 208.201.242.18 (Fri, 22 Mar 2002 14:30:21 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 14:30:21 PST Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.magick.tyagi:31961 alt.philosophy.taoism:96467 talk.religion.misc:375891 alt.mythology:69485 50020322 vi norenxaq : > I have recently embarked on researching the history of Taoism. big research project, could take all your life, depending on where you live, what your relation is to the actual practicing community, etc. > In my studies I have come across sevaral references to the leader > of the Celestial Masters being an hereditary office commencing with > Chang tao-ling. yes, this is a popular Taoist religious rendition of history, complete with authority-structures for religious rites and talismans. Chang Tao-ling is reputed as a great (and primordial?) Taoist alchemist. there are many Taoist religious stemming from the South during the Warring States period and others, especially centering on shamanic or possessory and magical religion, in particular surrounding the persons of Chang Tao-ling and Hsi Wang Mu. some of these cults have got really excited participants, very ecstatic! > I am interested in locating a complete list of these people along with > their birth and death dates. If anyone has such a list, in full or in > part, could you let me know how I could acquire a copy? Or, if you have > bibliographic references to where I can find one, let me know. > Or post it here? my guess is that there are more than one of these lists, depending on what spin the religious will wish to provide to their potential converts. each of the sects will probably be happy to supply you with 'lineage information' which describes the ancientness and authority-centered approach they are taking. from texts about which you are asking, you'll probably have to get to the more specialized anthropological and depth-oriented Taoist studies, perhaps in French or German. in the end my suspicion is that you will at BEST be able to accumulate the vast number of legend-based lineage tracings to compare, finding little to no historical basis for more than the latter half or 2/3rds of the list, but I'm no sinologist. good luck. xiwangmu