Founding · c. 142 CE

The Way of the Celestial Masters

Sichuan, China

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Illustration · AI-generated: artistic, not documentary.

By tradition, in 142 CE the deified Laozi appeared to Zhang Daoling in Sichuan and named him Celestial Master. His followers built a church with parishes, priests and written confession of sins, and treated illness as the fruit of wrongdoing. It is the earliest organised Daoist religion.

People: Zhang Daoling, Zhang Lu

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