Kristofer Schipper is currently Directeur d'Etudes at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne, Paris. An ordained Taoist priest and one of the world's leading authorities on Taoism, Schipper has published extensively on the subject in French, English, Chinese, and Japanese. Karen C. Duval is Research Editor with The Papers of Benjamin Franklin. Norman Girardot is chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at Lehigh University and author of Myth and Meaning in Early Taoism (California, 1983).