Hi Mark,   Not sure if you prefer to discuss it at your site or here but it seems on topic here, so I'll continue.   I would personally say there is at least one more time period before the Warring States, otherwise we have no continuity; it would be a kind of 'big bang' approach to say it all started from nothing... Not saying that is what your saying but any missing pre-state is suggestive to not having an influence.   I tend to see it as evolving in stages in history like this:   Primitive Naturalism > Divining and Mythology > Shamanism/Spiritualism > Political Philosophy > Alchemy > Religion > Dark Philosophy > Modern Philosophy   I am in the camp which says there is no difference. I remember traveling through Sichuan and going to a few Daoist temples and we asked them to explain the difference between Dao Jia and Dao Jiao (often western-speak for Philosophical Daoism and Religious Daoism) and we always got the same answer; there is no difference... they are part of the whole.   So while I hold this position, I came to the same conclusion that we may be missing the point of the discussion because what we do see in reality is a western (and even eastern) focus on the philosophy... but I think there are reasons which I won't go into since it may not matter for the here-and-now...   But someone can take a hold of any stage of interest and 'focus' there if they wanted to. I do think it is a little like studying a part of history and maybe missing what leads up to that part and where it goes on, etc... but I think in the end, it is not prohibited to do. I will say that I see it much more like 3 or 4 dimensional than my example provides but it's a simple example to a dynamic issue.