New Thought · 1845-1931
Myrtle Fillmore
Myrtle Fillmore co-founded Unity Church and pioneered Christian metaphysical healing. She taught that affirming divine truth and rejecting negative thought patterns could heal illness. Her own healing journey became the foundation of Unity's healing ministry.
About Myrtle Fillmore
Who was Myrtle Fillmore?
Myrtle Page Fillmore was born in 1845 in Pageville, Ohio, and was educated at Oberlin College, an unusually progressive institution that admitted women and African Americans decades before most. She worked as a teacher and met Charles Fillmore in the 1870s, and the two co-founded the Unity movement after a turning point that became one of the most remarkable founding stories in the history of the self-help tradition.
In 1886, Myrtle attended a New Thought lecture in Kansas City and heard the phrase 'I am a child of God and therefore I do not inherit sickness.' She took this as a direct instruction rather than an inspiration, spending the next two years systematically applying it - speaking to each organ of her body, affirming its divine health, and refusing to accept illness as her inheritance. She had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and given little hope of recovery. Within two years, by her own account and by the accounts of those around her, her health was completely restored.
The healing became the proof of concept around which she and Charles built the Unity movement. Myrtle's own letters and teachings, collected in 'How to Let God Help You,' reveal a precise and methodical mind. She did not simply think positive thoughts - she engaged in sustained, directed conversation with the body at a cellular level, treating each part as conscious and receptive to instruction. This is the practice that appears mystical until psychoneuroimmunology provides the framework for understanding it.
Modern psychoneuroimmunology confirms that beliefs and emotional states directly affect immune function through measurable pathways - cortisol levels, cytokine production, natural killer cell activity. Chronic negative belief states measurably suppress immune response. Myrtle Fillmore's recovery represents an extreme case of what research now demonstrates more modestly: belief change and sustained positive expectation have real physiological consequences. The mind-body split that made her story seem impossible in the nineteenth century does not exist in contemporary neuroscience.
The Dream.Align.Rewire Perspective
The neuroscience behind Fillmore's teaching
Myrtle's healing through affirmation and 'talking to the cells' appears mystical until you understand psychoneuroimmunology - the field that studies how thoughts and beliefs directly affect immune function. Chronic negative belief states measurably suppress immune response; belief change can begin to reverse this. Her recovery was an extreme case of what research now confirms. The mind-body separation that made her approach seem impossible in the 19th century simply does not exist in modern neuroscience.
Who This Is For
You'll get the most from Fillmore's work if…
- ✓You are curious about the mind-body connection and want one of its most remarkable documented founding cases
- ✓You are drawn to the healing tradition within New Thought - the idea that sustained belief directly affects physical health
- ✓You want to understand psychoneuroimmunology in its earliest and most personally compelling form
- ✓You are exploring the Unity movement and want to understand its co-founder's original healing discovery
- ✓You find the spiritual approach to health more resonant than the purely clinical one
- ✓You want to understand how 'talking to the cells' maps onto modern somatic and immune science
Key Work
How to Let God Help You
First published 1956
A collection of Myrtle Fillmore's letters and teachings, revealing the practical approach to healing and spiritual development she applied in her own life - and the precise mental conditions she found were required for it to work.
Read more about this work →The Annotated Edition
Read the original - with Christie's annotations
Written under Lesley Christie's pen name Christie L. Russell, the annotated edition of Myrtle Fillmore's key works adds the neuroscience, NLP, and CBT commentary that places each passage in its modern context - making century-old wisdom immediately actionable.
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