This entry provides biographical information about Charles Fillmore as well as a brief history of the founding of the Unity movement, headquartered at Unity Village, MO.

Charles Fillmore as a Young Man

Charles Fillmore Biography

Charles Fillmore was born on a Chippewa reservation in Minnesota in 1854.  Statehood for Minnesota did not come until 1858, and in the early years of Fillmore’s life the Chippewa, Sioux and white settlers often sparred over territory.  His father was an Indian agent and farmer from Buffalo, New York.  His mother was a dressmaker from Nova Scotia.  Fillmore did interact with the Chippewa as a youth – the first time when he was abducted by them at the age of six months.  He was returned a few hours later unharmed.  Apparently this happened more than once.

Although destined to become a religious leader, he did not have a religious upbringing.  On his father’s side, he had two uncles who were Methodist ministers; however, neither of his parents instructed their children (Fillmore and his brother Norton) in religious matters.

At the age of ten he had an accident while ice skating that, by the time he became an adult, left his right leg roughly three and one half inches shorter than the left.  His medical treatment was rough and generally unhelpful, and he was told by his doctors that it was likely the abscesses on his leg would kill him by the age of forty.  In spite of this, he did manage to attend school on and off through the age of eighteen.

By the time Fillmore was twenty, his parents’ marriage had ended and he felt physically strong enough to leave Minnesota.  He went to Texas where he worked for a railroad for five years, then went to Colorado where he studied metallurgy and worked in the mining industry.  In 1881 he married Mary Caroline “Myrtle” Page and the couple settled in Kansas City, Missouri in 1885.  While in Kansas City, he made a successful life for himself in real estate (Vahle, 2002, pp. 33-35).

Fillmore’s spiritual awakening came as a result of his wife’s self-healing from tuberculosis.  In 1886 the Fillmores attended a lecture by Christian Science practitioner Eugene B. Weeks at which the principles of Christian Science were taught.  These were new concepts to Myrtle Fillmore who was disenchanted with the puritanical teachings of sin and evil adhered to by her Methodist family.  She was impressed and inspired by the concept of an indwelling, loving Father that wanted only good for His children and diligently applied herself to the study and practice of Christian Science. She demonstrated healing for herself, and as a consequence, dedicated herself to serving as a spiritual healer for others (Vahle, 2002, pp. 6-8).

Although Fillmore’s formal education was not remarkable, he did have a voracious mind.  As a consequence of his wife’s healing, he applied himself to study, prayer, and meditation and discerned for himself a concept of the indwelling divine; however, he was confused about why different teachers taught different things about this divine presence and decided to contact the divine directly for clarity on the matter.  In 1894 he declared, “In this Babel I will go to headquarters.  If I am spirit and this God they talk so much about is Spirit we can somehow communicate, or the whole thing is a fraud” (Fillmore, 1894).  He commenced to spend time in mediation at the same every night for months, but without any results of note.  Eventually, he came to realize that his dreams were becoming exceedingly vivid and that the desired communication from “headquarters” was coming to him through his dreams.  He said, “I can distinguish no difference between my symbolic dreams and those of Jacob, Joseph and other Bible characters.  This is one of the many ways by which the Lord, or higher consciousness, communicates with the lower, and is just as operative today as it was centuries ago (Fillmore, 1894).

The Fillmores broadened their studies beyond Christian Science to include prayer, meditation, healing, metaphysics and established themselves as teachers and healers.  Fillmore gave up real estate in order to devote himself fully, with his wife, to the work they called “Unity.”  The Unity Movement counts the year of its birth as 1889, for that was the year that the Society of Silent Help was founded.  This Society is known today as Silent Unity, the acknowledged heart of the Unity Movement, and Silent Unity workers have been engaged in prayer work continuously since that time (Vahle, 2002, p. 145). Today Silent Unity receives millions of requests for prayer per year via telephone, mail, and email.  Fillmore was adamant about the power of prayer and said, “It is the language of spirituality; when developed it makes man master in the realm of creative ideas” (Fillmore, 1959, p. 152).

Fillmore was a highly competent organizer and marketer which fostered the growth of the Unity movement from Kansas City to around the world.  Prior to the incorporation of Unity School of Christianity in 1914 into which all Unity activities were consolidated, Fillmore owned and operated Unity Tract Society, established in 1897, which published Unity magazine, Thought Publishing Company, which published the magazines Modern Thought, Christian Science Thought, and Thought, and Unity Book Company, which spread the Unity message through print media (Vahle, 2002, p. 145).  It should be noted that although Unity School of Christianity had as its focus spiritual teaching, it was incorporated in Missouri as a commercial business rather than a nonprofit institution with all stock controlled by the four members of the Fillmore family, Charles, Myrtle and their two sons.  The reasoning was that a commercial business would be more appropriate on account of Unity’s publishing operations.  The incorporation stipulated that all no dividends would be paid out, and all profits would be used to support the organization.  This move, though later questioned by the Internal Revenue Service (an exemption to tax liability was granted in 1926), effectively guaranteed the Fillmore family control of Unity School through the twentieth century (Vahle, 2002, p. 147-149).  In various articles, tracts and books, Fillmore articulated his concepts about psychology and dreams, which will be addressed below, as well as his understanding of Christian metaphysics, prayer, meditation and theology in general.

Fillmore died at the age of 94 in 1948.

The next post will a a biographical description of Carl Jung…