A merry heart makes
a cheerful countenance.
—English proverb

Sir John Templeton

As a pioneer in both financial investments and spiritual endeavors, John Marks Templeton has spent a lifetime encouraging open-mindedness. If he hadn't sought new paths, the native Tennesseean — a fulltime philanthropist at 92 — says "he would have been unable to attain so many goals".

This site, sponsored by Templeton Foundation Press, is a celebration of the life, inspiration, and achievements of Sir John Templeton as both a success in the financial world and forward thinking leader in the field of science and religion.

We invite you to read online the full text of Possibilities for Over One Hundredfold More Spiritual Information: The Humble Approach in Science and Theology. This book, written by Sir John, challenges the reader to apply the same energy that has been devoted to scientific inquiry to the pursuit of spiritual information.

Also featured online is the full text for Sir John Templeton: Supporting Scientific Research for Spiritual Discoveries by Robert Herrmann. This book provides biographical details of Sir John’s life, and, offers a wealth of information about the John Templeton Foundation.

Biography

Beginning a Wall Street career in 1937, John Templeton created some of the world’s largest and most successful international investment funds. Termed "arguably the greatest global stock picker of the century" by Money Magazine (Jan. 1999), he sold his various Templeton funds in 1992 to the Franklin Group for $440 million. Now a naturalized British citizen living in Nassau, The Bahamas, Templeton was knighted Sir John by Queen Elizabeth II in 1987 for his many accomplishments. One of those was creating the world's richest award, the $1 million-plus Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities, presented annually in London since 1972. Through the John Templeton Foundation, based in West Conshohocken, Pa., he gives away approximately $40 million a year — especially to projects, college courses, books, and essays on the benefits of cooperation between science and religion.

Sir John Templeton, a student of benefits from free competition and disciplined work habits, is not the first wealthy investor to increase his giving to religion-related causes late in life. However, his progressive ideas on finance and faith make him a distinctive figure in both fields, perhaps something of an iconoclast. Not that the soft-spoken Southerner worries about that. "Rarely does a conservative become a hero of history," Templeton wrote in The Humble Approach, one of a dozen books he has authored or edited. "Rather, it is the far-reaching thinker who breaks out of the traditional mold . . . one who, according to the accepted customs of his time, might be branded a heretic." Taking a less-traveled route in investing, Templeton sold advice on how to invest worldwide when Americans rarely considered foreign investment. more