semi-divine saints of TAO. That the spiritual or intellectual factor is non-essential is proved by accounts of the brute creation participating in the transformation. All this makes it evident that while a hsien need not die, still less is it necessary to die to become a hsien. How then can be explained away the awkward fact that eminent votaries of TAO suffer what to the vulgar eye differs not from the death of unregenerate man? The Taoists answer by likening the corpse to the skin shed by a snake, and the event they call a "dissolution" or "release from the flesh."[1] Be it noted that it is no discarnate soul that is thus liberated, but one animating an etherealized counterpart of its former earthly tenement.
Less ambiguity obtains when it is described how the coffins of such seeming victims of the universal fate are subsequently opened and found to contain nothing, except perhaps some grave-clothes. These are, of course, merely instances of hsien who for some good purpose feign death while awaiting translation to paradise.
No room for doubt is left when the happy one levitates to heaven, or is carried thither, like Elijah, in a celestial chariot, or ascends on high riding a phoenix, a crane, or a dragon. Clearly this numerous class retain their full bodily equipment, which may or may not have been prepared by a refining process of spiritualization. There is in this connection a curious point so frequently insisted on in Taoist books that it cannot be passed over in silence. Great importance is attached to the particular period of the twenty-four hours in which the apotheosis of a hsien takes place, and apparently the hour varies to suit the sanctity of the individual. Release in the broad light of day is the most perfect, it is less so when it happens at midnight. When it occurs at dawn or at dusk, the being concerned is relegated to a terrestrial paradise such as the Isles of the Blest.[2]
