The celestial bureaucracy is not a metaphor imposed by outsiders; it is how the tradition describes its own gods. They hold offices with defined jurisdictions and terms, file and receive reports, can be promoted by imperial decree — Guandi was elevated repeatedly by successive dynasties — and can be demoted or impeached for failing to deliver. Communication runs by written memorial in the correct format, sealed and burned so that it ascends, and a Taoist priest is functionally a licensed official authorised by his register to submit documents on a community's behalf. The Stove God files an annual performance review on the household; the City God holds a post equivalent to a magistrate's and was historically installed with the same ceremony. Anthropologists have read this as heaven modelled on the imperial state, and the imperial state was entirely comfortable with the parallel, granting titles to gods as it granted them to officials.