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Catyron@aol.com:

Sunday July 03 1994 14:23, Catyron@aol.com wrote to All:

 Cc> Message-ID: <9407031523.tn311210@aol.com>
 Cc> Dear Clinton Pierce,
 Cc> I am not a freemason (i am a woman and thus cannot join)
 Cc> but i have been an admirer and follower of the fraternity
 Cc> for many years. In response to your query about the recent
 Cc> decision to delete the word "Temple" in Massachusetts, i
 Cc> would note that i have seen this in California, too. I speak
 Cc> only as an outsider, but several buildings previously known
 Cc> as Masonic Temples are now officially called Masonic
 Cc> CENTERS. This change extends to having new signs made
 Cc> for some building exteriors. I date this change from within
 Cc> the past ten years (truth to tell, i did not notice it all at
 Cc> once). I wonder if the GL's decision to make such a radical
 Cc> change in a long-held turn of speech corresponds to the public's
 Cc> interest in such grotesque travesties as the book HOLY BLOOD,
 Cc> HOLY GRAIL, which has given Fundamentalists a lot of fuel
 Cc> for anti-Masonry. Specifically, since the publication of that
 Cc> book i have heard a LOT of non-Masons say that they know
 Cc> for sure that the Masonic ritual includes "spitting on the cross."
 Cc> I never heard this among the general populace before HBHG
 Cc> was published. It may be that in the wake of such charges, the
 Cc> Masonic hierarchy feels that discretion is the better part of
 Cc> valour and is withdrawing all overt references to the word
 Cc> "Temple" -- not as a way of denying belief in a Supreme Architect,
 Cc> but as a way of defusing the public's spurious fears centering
 Cc> on the Knights Templar and the thesis that, as "Templars,"
 Cc> Masons believe (ala HBHG) that Jesus was not divine.
 Cc> Just a theory, anyway.
 Cc> catherine yronwode
 Cc> amateur Masonic researcher

I must say, I have never heard that charge raised against Masons. (not to say
it hasn't)

What one must realize is that a Masonic Temple and Knight Templars derive their
name from the same source. Masonic Temple are symbolic of King Solomon's
Temple. The Templars from the fact that they were based at the site of the
Temple.

Whether part, or all, of the beginnings of Speculative Masonry derives from the
Templars, we may never know,

As for whether the Templars believed Jesus was not Divine, is still a great
matter of speculation. While that charge may have been made, there was much
political motivation in their demise.

Dave

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