The Chinese Taoist Association was founded in 1957 as one of the state-recognised patriotic religious associations, headquartered at the White Cloud Temple in Beijing. Through it temples register, clergy are certified, seminaries operate and restoration funding is channelled; nothing institutional happens outside it. Its activities ceased entirely during the Cultural Revolution from 1966, when temples across China were closed, images and texts destroyed, and clergy compelled to return to lay life — a rupture of well over a decade whose effects on transmission were severe, since much Taoist ritual knowledge passes orally from master to disciple. Revival began in the 1980s and has been substantial, with major temples rebuilt and ordinations resumed, though under supervision that has tightened in recent years. Taiwan, Hong Kong and the overseas Chinese communities experienced no equivalent break, which is why fieldworkers seeking continuous ritual lineages have often worked in Taiwan and southern Fujian rather than in the historic northern centres.