Charles Sherlock Fillmore (August 22, 1854 – July 5, 1948) founded Unity, a church within the New Thought movement, with his wife, Myrtle Page Fillmore, in 1889. He became known as an American mystic for his contributions to spiritualist interpretations of Biblical scripture.
Charles and Myrtle both had health problems and turned to some new ideas which they believed helped to improve these health issues. Their beliefs are centered around two basic propositions: (1) God is good. (2) God is available; in fact, God is in you. About a year after the Fillmores started the magazine Modern Thought, they had the inspiration that if God is what they thought--the principle of love and intelligence, the source of all good--God is wherever needed.
Both Charles and Myrtle became strict vegetarians in the 1890s, long before the practice caught on in the West. The Fillmores' nutritional convictions were based on their spiritual beliefs. Charles Fillmore was an ethical vegetarian who did not eat animal flesh. He also refused to wear leather and fur.
For over forty years, from the late nineteenth century into the 1930's, Charles Fillmore wrote passionately about the physical, mental, social, and spiritual harmfulness of eating animal foods, and the necessity of a plant-based diet for anyone serious about developing spiritual maturity and contributing to world peace. He and Myrtle were conscientious vegetarians and encouraged their students to be so.
There was once a village called Unity Village, where it would be a recreational place for Unity workers and in the future, it would develop into a spot where unity people from all parts of the world may come and commune with nature and study Unity principles.
A Unity Inn lunch menu from 1916 included:
rice peach pudding
A dinner menu included:
In his later years, Fillmore felt so young that he thought that he might be physically immortal, as well as believing that he might be the reincarnation of Paul of Tarsus.