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Society

Taoist communities can include a wide variety of people and groups, including daoshi, hermits, monastics, teachers, householders, ascetics, family lineages, teacher-disciple lineages, urban associations, temples, and monasteries.

According to Russell Kirkland, throughout most of its history, most Taoist traditions "were founded and maintained by aristocrats or by members of the later well-to-do ' gentry ' class". The only real exception is the Celestial Masters movement, which had a strong basis in the lower classes (though even this movement had a hereditary leadership made up of figures of the Chang clan for generations).