Monday, January 28, 2008
TEMPLETON CONTINUED
Mary Ann Meyers, Ph.D. is a writer and the Senior Fellow at John Templeton Foundation. She has authored THE SWEDENBORGIAN EXPERIENCE IN COMMUNITY CONSTRUCTION, along with other books about religion. She heads the Humble Approach Initiative, a Templeton program. Among the conferences she has chaired is "Pantheism: Were Ancient Pantheistic Views a First Step Toward the Humble Apporoach in Theology?" held in December 2001 at St. George's House, Windsor Castle, England.
The website of the European Center of Austrian Economics presents the bio of Pauline Dixon, who does research at the University of Newcastle "with a research emphasis in Austrian Economics, the theory of regulation and privatisation of education in developing countries" . She is called "a leading authority in education policy....Her course "Educational Freedom: A Global Perspective", was a winner of the Freedom Project, funded by the John Templeton Foundation."..."before moving into research, Pauline Dixon was a professional jazz pianist and organist." Her area of expertise is third world education, which would appear to be of particular interest to the Foundation. She has co-authored an article for "The Review of Austrian Economics 2005".
Since Sir John Templeton is sympathetic to Swedenborgianism, I thought it interesting to find "A Course in Miracles Study Group" at the Swedenborgian Temenos Retreat facility.
Another Templeton endeavor is the Templeton Freedom Awards Program which is administered by Atlas, a $10,000 prize that was awarded to the Friedrich A. v. Hayek Institute, and Ludwig von Vises Institute, both Austrian Economics institutions, in 2006. Media Transparency tells us that Atlas Economic Research Foundation is "A virginia-based organization [that] has been quietly working as the Johnny Appleseed of conservative think tanks" which is "on a mission to populate the world with new 'free market' voices." Most of the funding has come from the Earhart Foundation.
Source Watch says Earhart "funds research and scholarship" [including]the 1980s "burgeoning conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, which became a prominent source of ideas and people for the Reagan administration."
Wikipedia tells us Earhart "has epitomized achievement in the humanities and social sciences. ... Harry B. Earhart started the foundation in 1929 with the fortune he made with White Star Oil Company. Among his foundation's early beneficiaries was Friedrich von Hayek of the London School of Economics, who wrote The Road to Serfdom and The Constitution of Liberty."[1] The foundation supports free-market scholars through a network of 50 'Earhart professors' across the United States", and that the organization is engaged in the publishing of the collected works of Eric Voegelin. This organization, too, is promoting Austrian Economics. Vogelin was a friend of van Hayek. He studied Gnosticism according to Wikipedia.