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Is there a central teaching authority for Daoists? For CCT?
Leadership, Authority, and Religious Roles
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Individual Daoist sects, orders, and schools have regarded—and in some cases still do regard—their teaching office as a solemn and demanding role. But on the whole, Daoists do not think of themselves as following any particular teaching or adhering to a particular orthodoxy. Even when important patriarchs, such as the living leader of the Celestial Masters school, have delivered formal pronouncements, relatively few Daoists take notice. What is true of Daoism in this respect is even truer of the much more amorphous CCT. In neither case is any specific articulation of doctrine of any particular importance. Doctrinal standards are replaced here by pure tradition—“the way we’ve always done things.”