A husband and his wife, physically and financially depressed, followed a hint in an address by a “metaphysical lecturer,” Eugene B. Weeks. “I am a child of God, and therefore do not inherit sickness.” This thought healed Myrtle Fillmore of tuberculosis and, later, her husband, Charles, of a diseased hip. Raised in a Christian environment, they connected it thoroughly with Christian terminology, and then with all-encompassing faith they applied the thought in every direction.
HISTORY
The movement began with debts in the year 1890, but it grew through free will offerings in return for literature and prayers freely distributed. Today its influence spreads around the earth, including Nigeria. Statistics, however, are not available, as the cult prefers (like the Bahá’is) to work silently and pervasively.
In 1891 the name Unity suddenly dawned upon Charles Fillmore. “That’s it,” he cried. “UNITY! That’s the name for our work, the name we’ve been looking for! The name came right out of the ether, just as the voice of Jesus was heard by Paul alone. No one heard it, but it was as clear to me as though somebody had spoken to me.”
Blest with two sons, Rickert the architect-farmer, and Lowell the organizer, the organization has built two centers, the Unity Society of Practical Christianity in Kansas City, Missouri, and the more recent headquarters, the Unity School of Christianity at Lee’s Summit, Missouri. They operate “the best vegetarian cafeteria in the world” (though the eating of meat is not strictly forbidden, and Charles ate fish in his later years), they own huge printing presses and a powerful broadcasting station, they distribute freely and sell tons of books and pamphlets, and they have year-round training classes and education for “Unity ministry.” In 1910 they organized “The Silent 70,” who distribute free literature including testimonials concerning cures effected. Also there is “The Silent Unity,” 100 workers who engage in 24-hour prayer in answer to thousands of telegrams, letters, and telephone calls requesting intercession for health, solution of marital problems, success upon business ventures, and so on. Prayer is as effective when sent up by others as when it is personally offered, since the ones requesting prayer thereby show a great faith.
At first the cult was loosely identified with Christian Science and New Thought (the magazine was called Modern Thought, then Christian Science Thought, later Unity). In 1922 the Fillmores withdrew once for all from the INTA (International New Thought Alliance). Unity has developed somewhat less materialistically than New Thought, and less egocentrically than Christian Science.
Some evangelical ministers, Roman Catholic priests, and rabbis leave Unity tracts in hospitals. These tracts are often phrased so that when read against a Christian background they can be helpful. But they are decidedly harmful when the underlying anti-Christian philosophy is not detected and Unity’s gross allegorizing of Scripture is swallowed.
Unity ministers have recently organized many churches, first known as Unity Centers, now also as Unity Church of Truth. More conscious of their independent organization, these ministers broadcast a “Unity Viewpoint” and “At the Silent Unity Prayer Hour.” Great stress is laid upon “praying with Silent Unity at 11 o’clock every morning.” In Missouri all work stops several times daily for prayer, and great value is ascribed to hearing the Lord’s Prayer from a tape recording in Charles Fillmore’s own voice (he died in July, 1948, at the age of 94). Local churches, however, remain bound to Unity headquarters by an Annual Conference.
WHAT UNITY TEACHES
Unity began with an emphasis on healing from bodily disease. It is not to be confused with Faith Healing which looks to a transcendent God in the name of the divine-human Saviour Jesus Christ. Unity shares with the latter the mistake of believing it is not in the will of God for anyone to be ill and that all failure to be healed is due to lack of faith. But Unity surpasses in error the theory of Faith Healing, for it does not look toward “The Lord thy Healer” of Scripture but to a divine principle within man himself. It is, like New Thought and Eddyism, a mind-healing cult. Charles Fillmore wrote in Modern Thought: “These columns are open to teachers and healers who advocate and practice Pure Mind-Healing only.… Not that we condemn any system, but … we find by experience that concentration is necessary to success and we wish to confine these pages to that specific doctrine, and Holy Ghost power, taught and demonstrated by Jesus Christ” (The Story of Unity, p. 57).
The Fillmores never denied the reality of matter, sickness, and death, as did Mrs. Eddy, but they asserted that existing evil can be removed by mind, truth, thought. Thus it becomes clear why they developed a less illogical type of mind-healing than did Christian Science, and why they abandoned the name of Christian Science Thought. Mrs. Eddy both denies the reality of evil and posits it as a product of Mortal Mind, an entity for which there is really no room in a system that asserts that God is All, and All is Good. Unity admits the reality of evil, but it asserts that God, Principle, Truth is more powerful than evil and therefore is able to drive evil out physically, economically, in fact completely from human existence.
The Fillmores assert that evil is the product of wrong thought, to be abolished by right thinking (Story, p. 60). Most telling for the claims of the theory is the title of Charles Fillmore’s last book, Atom-Smashing Power of Mind. All matter is full of energy. When released, a drop of water may blow up a 10-story building. Life is based upon the interaction between the various electrical units of the universe. Science tells about these units, but only the spiritually-developed man can understand them. Faith rouses man’s physical cells to expectancy and results take place.
This cure-all of the mind operates in every sphere. All causes lie in the mental man. The physician thinks that disease germs “are an integral part of the natural world; the metaphysician sees disease germs as the manifested results of anger, revenge, jealousy, fear, impurity, and many other mind activities.… To attain prosperity, think about prosperity, industry, and efficiency (ibid, pp. 99, 104).
EVALUATION
The emphasis upon “mind over matter” is good. Every intelligent person knows that emotion (spiritual) may cause blushing or pallor (physical); that anger, hatred, revenge, fear do cause headaches, angina pectoris, heart attacks, neuroses, insanity. Physicians and pastors realize that this territory of knowledge has only been partly explored. Many sicknesses do result from wrong thinking, but germs do not, though depressing thoughts lower physical resistance to germs.
Our churches would be in better condition if Christians would consult as freely with the indwelling Holy Spirit as Unity devotees do with their indwelling God. In the case of Christianity, the transcendent Holy Spirit does a regenerating and sanctifying work within us, while in Unity a man’s own divine spirit, mind, or energy is supposed to perform such a work.
The basic error of Unity, therefore, which it shares with Christian Science, New Thought, Theosophy, and Rosicrucianism, is its pantheism. Man, according to biblical teaching, is not divine. His mind is created. But H. E. Cady states that “though to the awakened mind it may seem that it is more money as money, or more goods that he wants, it is nevertheless, more of good (God) that he craves; for all is God” (Lessons in Truth, p. 87). Unity literature is full of pantheism. We must “find the Christ in us.” “God is all.” “God is principle.” Truth resides in all men regardless of their racial or religious background. “Keep ever in mind that each living person in all God’s universe is a radiating center of the same perfect One.” By mere concentrated thought upon a person, we can awake in him the sense of divinity (Cady, ibid., p. 135).
Being sheer pantheism, Unity denies the guilt of sin. Sin is a transgression of the law, to be eliminated by a return to law. And man, being mentally divine, is able to do this. This declaration is a radical denial of Romans 8:7, “The mind of the flesh is enmity against God.”
Since sin entails no guilt, there is no sentence of death as “the wages of sin” (Rom. 6:23). Fillmore expected almost to the end that he would not die; finally he thought he was to live on in an astral body (cf. Theosophy) and continue in a reincarnation. There can be no atonement, no propitiation, no penalty paid for sin by Jesus Christ. We need only to learn about “at-one-ment” with God through a pantheistic “inflow” of spirit or energy.
Unity resents the biblical teaching that sickness and death may be a punishment sent by a just and holy God (cf. Miriam’s and Gehazi’s leprosy, Num. 12:10; 2 Kings 5:27; Jehoram’s enteritis, 2 Chron. 21:18; the death of David’s child, 2 Sam. 12:8: the death of Ananias, Acts 5).
Unity fails to understand that adversity may be a Godsend and affliction may lead to spiritual advantage: Job said, “Now mine eye seeth thee”; the psalmist gave thanks, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted”; Paul wrote, “I take pleasure in weaknesses”; and even Jesus “learned obedience by the things which he suffered.”
Unity reduces God to a Do-gooder, not One to be served and glorified but a principle to serve and to obey the human will. His funds are inexhaustible and at our disposal because we all are fundamentally divine and good. “The Lord is my banker; my credit is good. He maketh me to lie down in the consciousness of omnipotent abundance; He giveth me the key to His strong-box … and I shall do business in the name of the Lord forever” (Fillmore). Jesus Christ becomes the “Way-shower,” our personified ideal. Christianity becomes a religion of getting on without crossbearing.
Like Swedenborgianism, Unity allegorizes Scripture, declaring it to be parable where it is clearly written as historic incident. Genesis 1–2 “is a symbolic story of the work of the higher realms of mind under divine law” (Atom, p. 12). The tabernacle and the temple are symbols of man’s body, “the real meeting place of Jehovah” (ibid., p. 80). The story of the fall is symbolism (Christian Healing, p. 21). Jesus’ transfiguration is an allegory demonstrating the universal possibility of attainment or realization (Atom, p. 152). The apostles symbolize “a higher expression of the faculties.” Simon Peter is hearing and faith. John is feeling and love joined (Christian Healing, p. 73). King Herod represents the ego in the outer sense consciousness. Jesus represents God’s idea of man in expression; Christ is that idea in the absolute (Unity, Vol. 72, No. 1).
As to Unity’s healings, many of them are genuine. Let us appreciate the emphasis of mind over matter. Other healings are not. Charles Fillmore remained a cripple. Unity judges only by the patient’s own testimony and refuses to submit to a physician’s diagnosis. In view of the vehemently anti-Christian doctrine of Unity, we should not forget that St. Paul ascribes to Satan the power of doing “lying wonders” through his human agents (2 Thess. 2:9). Satan is never more dangerous than when he walks in velvet slippers.
SELECTION OF BOOKS FOR STUDY
Pamphlets for study are: Help for Alcoholics; The Master’s Ten Laws for Human Relations; As You Tithe So You Prosper; Maternity Lessons; A Ten-Point Creed for Teen-Age Drivers; Wherever You Are God is Near; What Unity Teaches; Training School Prospectus (Unity School of Christianity, Lee’s Summit, Missouri). The standard publications by The Silent 70 are: Unity, Daily Word, Weekly Unity, Good Business, You, Wee Wisdom. Books published by Unity School of Christianity (Lee’s Summit, Missouri) are as follows:
Charles Fillmore, Christian Healing (1909, 1957).
Charles Fillmore, Atom-Smashing Power of Mind (1949, 1957).
James Dillet Freeman, The Story of Unity (1954).
H. Emilie Cady, Lessons in Truth (1958).
Marcus Bach, They Have Found a Faith (Bobbs-Merrill, 1946).
Charles S. Braden, These Also Believe (Macmillan, 1949).
Paul Tournier, A Doctor’s Case-book in the Light of the Bible (Harper, 1960).
J. K. van Baalen, When Hearts Grow Faint, Instructions on How to Live a Life of Joy (Eerdmans, 1960).
J. K. van Baalen, The Chaos of Cults (third edition, Eerdmans, 1960).
Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.
