Unity Movement

Founded in the late 1880s in Kansas City, Missouri, by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, the Unity movement grew into perhaps the most influential New Thought group in the United States in the 20th century. It is best known for its teachings on positive thinking, mental healing, and financial prosperity.

Charles and Myrtle Fillmore began their advocacy of mental healing soon after Myrtle reported successfully healing herself of tuberculosis by repeatedly affirming that as “a child of God” she did not “inherit sickness.” The Fillmores began publishing a series of magazines devoted to mental healing and metaphysical religion that, by the mid-1890s, were consolidated into Unity Magazine. In 1890, at Myrtle's suggestion, they began an organization to provide prayer support to those who wrote in for help, which later became known as “Silent Unity.” In 1891, the Fillmores were ordained as ministers by Emma Curtis Hopkins, a former student of Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy and the teacher of many of the first generation of New Thought teachers.

The Fillmores focused on using publications to spread their vision to all who would listen, regardless of their church affiliation. Throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries, Unity publications advocated the use of the latent powers of the mind to achieve spiritual well-being, physical health, and financial prosperity while maintaining a generally Christian-centered vocabulary and altruistic em phasis. Bible passages tended to be interpreted allegorically, while Jesus was conceived of as a human who had found the inner spark of divinity in himself and taught others to do the same. Numerous other early New Thought writers contributed to the Fillmores’ efforts. The most influential of these was the New York homeopathic physician H. Emilie Cady, who in 1895 wrote a series of lessons that soon were collected into book form as Lessons in Truth, which became Unity's introductory textbook and has sold more than 1.5 million copies.

Today, the Unity movement has two major organizational entities: the Unity School of Christianity and the Association of Unity Churches. The Unity School of Christianity, based in Lee's Summit, Missouri, oversees publication activities, numerous educational retreats and seminars, and the prayer services of Silent Unity. In addition to Unity Magazine, the Unity School publishes the Daily Word, a magazine that focuses on daily inspirational interpretations of Scripture. It is published in eight languages and has a worldwide circulation of 91,000. Silent Unity provides prayer support to more than 1.5 million telephone callers annually, with 13 affiliates worldwide operating in English, Spanish, and French. The other major entity is the Association of Unity Churches, which organizes the activities of 875 Unity churches, 211 of them outside the United States.

Although Unity has been attacked as heretical by conservative Christian groups, its publications have been read by many who never formally identified with the New Thought movement. It has thus been one source of the spread of “health and wealth” ideas among Christians worldwide, even as many of Unity's congregants and writers gravitate toward metaphysical and “New Age” religious orientations.