I must say that reading these posts makes me wonder if any of those proclaiming Unity a "destructive church" ever actually attended a Unity Church.

Proclaiming the teachings of Unity "magical thinking" belies a complete and profound misunderstanding of the teachings of the Unity School of Christianity.

I've been to many Unity Churches, and the greatest mistake they make is that many Unity ministers tend to water down the actual teachings in their lessons, thereby giving the impression that this "The Secret" kind of magical thinking is actually what Unity teaches. If it is, then Jesus taught magical thinking as well.

A cult is a group that demands loyalty to a particular group or person, and Unity is the exact opposite of this. Unity encourages the individual to follow the promptings of the Spirit of Truth within him or her and supports the individual in going wherever that guidance leads, even if it means they leave Unity.

As for being "free of Unity," one is "free of Unity" even while "in" Unity.

And I find it outlandish for anyone to accuse Unity of nearly destroying one's life, especially when one of the primary criticisms one levels at Unity is that it discourages critical thinking.

That's a victim mentality.

Basically every point being made by "Mikko" is contrary to the facts about Unity.
For instance, Unity is based on the writings of the Fillmore's, which are the very definition of Magical Thinking, if not outright deception, fraud, and nonsense. The Fillmore's were business people out to make serious money, and appear to have fabricated their personal "healings".

Unity is decentralized, but the local churches can operate like a personality cult. There is a recent example of a Unity leader, who was busted for having sex with many of his female parishioners, sometimes even have oral sex with them in the Unity prayer/treatment room, and then accepting a "donation" to the church after the prayer/treatment/oral sex session!
(this guy must think he is the Unity Midnight Cowboy).
This same man was also busted for taking money from the local Unity church which was falling apart, and Abundantly building himself a massive house!

But guess what? The local board is controlled by his cronies, so he was never fired, and is still there, still in control. After the sex-money scandal, many people left the local Unity church, but some stayed, and then they just start over again.

I know those who believe in Unity consider Unity to hold the Truth. But Unity appears to be based on a fraud and is basically a big moneymaking machine.
Unity may seem benign for those who choose not to look deeper, but the facts show that Unity, even though is decentralized, is pretty much rotten to the core.
Power and Money corrupt, and Unity is no exception.

Unity also utterly opposes critical thinking.
But those on the New Thought gravy train, charging people $150 an hour for "treatments" are of course going to want to keep the money flowing in.
Unity is a massive cash-cow for those on the receiving end.

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Mikko
I must say that reading these posts makes me wonder if any of those proclaiming Unity a "destructive church" ever actually attended a Unity Church.

Proclaiming the teachings of Unity "magical thinking" belies a complete and profound misunderstanding of the teachings of the Unity School of Christianity.

I've been to many Unity Churches, and the greatest mistake they make is that many Unity ministers tend to water down the actual teachings in their lessons, thereby giving the impression that this "The Secret" kind of magical thinking is actually what Unity teaches. If it is, then Jesus taught magical thinking as well.

A cult is a group that demands loyalty to a particular group or person, and Unity is the exact opposite of this. Unity encourages the individual to follow the promptings of the Spirit of Truth within him or her and supports the individual in going wherever that guidance leads, even if it means they leave Unity.

As for being "free of Unity," one is "free of Unity" even while "in" Unity.

And I find it outlandish for anyone to accuse Unity of nearly destroying one's life, especially when one of the primary criticisms one levels at Unity is that it discourages critical thinking.

That's a victim mentality.

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The Anticult
Basically every point being made by "Mikko" is contrary to the facts about Unity.
For instance, Unity is based on the writings of the Fillmore's, which are the very definition of Magical Thinking, if not outright deception, fraud, and nonsense. The Fillmore's were business people out to make serious money, and appear to have fabricated their personal "healings".

Sorry, but simply calling my statements false with no facts to back it up proves nothing. Likewise, simply stating you opinion that the Fillmores' writings are "magical thinking, deception, and nonsense" signifies nothing other than an opinion. And stating that the Fillmores appear to have fabricated their personal "healings" is, again, simply an opinion with no objective verification.

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The Anticult
Unity is decentralized, but the local churches can operate like a personality cult. There is a recent example of a Unity leader, who was busted for having sex with many of his female parishioners, sometimes even have oral sex with them in the Unity prayer/treatment room, and then accepting a "donation" to the church after the prayer/treatment/oral sex session!

Incidents such as these occur in every denomination, including the Catholic Church, Evangelical groups, and every other grouping you can think of. There is that in the church structure that can lead to these unfortunate events when a sick and broken person gets into the position of spiritual leader. So, again, "anticult," this incident is in no way an indication of Untiy's being anything like a cult.

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The Anticult
(this guy must think he is the Unity Midnight Cowboy).
This same man was also busted for taking money from the local Unity church which was falling apart, and Abundantly building himself a massive house!
But guess what? The local board is controlled by his cronies, so he was never fired, and is still there, still in control. After the sex-money scandal, many people left the local Unity church, but some stayed, and then they just start over again.

Again, while dispicable, these kinds of scenarios play out in all religious groupings, so again you have failed to refute my statements about Unity.

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The Anticult

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The Anticult
I know those who believe in Unity consider Unity to hold the Truth. But Unity appears to be based on a fraud and is basically a big moneymaking machine.

Utter nonsense. Most Unity churches are very small and operate on modest budgets, with their ministers on very humble salaries. With all due respect, unless you can produce objective verification for your claims, you're simply blowing smoke about something concerning which you seem to have little or no real information.

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The Anticult
Unity may seem benign for those who choose not to look deeper, but the facts show that Unity, even though is decentralized, is pretty much rotten to the core.
Power and Money corrupt, and Unity is no exception.

It's easy to make statements like "rotten to the core," and "corrupt" without backing them up, but absent facts, figures, and statistics, it's just empty air.

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The Anticult
Unity also utterly opposes critical thinking.

As a professor, I'm fully aware of what critical thinking is, and as a long-time Unity member, I also know that the Unity teachings demand critical thinking in that the student is enjoined not to accept anything written by the Fillmores or anybody else on face value, but to test it for oneself.

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The Anticult
But those on the New Thought gravy train, charging people $150 an hour for "treatments" are of course going to want to keep the money flowing in.
Unity is a massive cash-cow for those on the receiving end.

I can only hope that anyone reading these comments is, indeed, capable of critical thinking, for if he or she is, it will be obvious to him or her that anticult's string of general and unsubstantiated comments are just that - empty words.

Unity does not "prey" on people, does not encourage magical thinking, and is neither rotten to the core nor a money machine. If you want to take these comments on face value, of course you may, but if you do, you are failing to think critically in doing so.

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Mikko
I must say that reading these posts makes me wonder if any of those proclaiming Unity a "destructive church" ever actually attended a Unity Church.

Proclaiming the teachings of Unity "magical thinking" belies a complete and profound misunderstanding of the teachings of the Unity School of Christianity.

I've been to many Unity Churches, and the greatest mistake they make is that many Unity ministers tend to water down the actual teachings in their lessons, thereby giving the impression that this "The Secret" kind of magical thinking is actually what Unity teaches. If it is, then Jesus taught magical thinking as well.

A cult is a group that demands loyalty to a particular group or person, and Unity is the exact opposite of this. Unity encourages the individual to follow the promptings of the Spirit of Truth within him or her and supports the individual in going wherever that guidance leads, even if it means they leave Unity.

As for being "free of Unity," one is "free of Unity" even while "in" Unity.

And I find it outlandish for anyone to accuse Unity of nearly destroying one's life, especially when one of the primary criticisms one levels at Unity is that it discourages critical thinking.

That's a victim mentality.

My personal experience with Unity has been VERY positive. That does not exclude the possibility that someone may find a particular group that somehow operates as a "destructive cult". But I certainly cannot see how that could be directly connected with Unity itself. I would strongly recommend Unity approach to any person that likes/needs to follow a Christian path in his/her life.

I’ve always loved the teachings of Unity; and when I discovered Science of Mind I became even more fascinated by the power of our minds! And since I was so interested on learning more about these teachings I found a Unity church which I’ll call ‘Violet.’ So I started attending believing that it was going to further accelerate my growth, and increase more some of the happiness and exhilaration towards life I was already feeling! I was excited thinking that I was going to be even more uplifted, encouraged and inspired by the leaders in the church!
But I kept finding so many things about the ministers in ‘Violet’ that just didn’t feel right!
I finally stopped going to the 'Violet' church because I just wasn’t willing to put up with any more of their constant judgment, condemnation and criticism towards me! It seemed like they were always trying to find something wrong about me to put me down and to tell me how much I needed their NLP method, their Reiki method, Hypnosis or any of the other ‘Healing Methods’ they were trained on!
I was really happy (and healthy) when I got involved with that church, and my only interest was to learn more, to find like-minded people and to be happier! But instead I left resented and hurt because of how much they put me down and they kept trying to make me feel unworthy, undeserving and valueless!
I’m not putting down in any way the teachings of Unity, Science of mind and New Thought; I feel that in this particular ‘Violet’ church, the ministers had their own interests to try to make me believe that I needed the ‘Healing Methods’ they were selling! And indeed one day they pushed me to try their NLP method and I didn’t feel they were properly trained because it didn’t help me at all, but all the contrary!
In the other side, I really feel uplifted when I do my own visualization and affirmation methods. And my yoga and my meditations always bring me so much peace.
But now I’m so thankful for this site and for the internet where I’ve been able to research a lot about NLP; and I found out so many facts about NLP Practitioners, and one of them is that many of them have no real skills and they are just scammers, just like I felt the ministers from my ex-church were! I found out how easy it is to become a Master NLP Practitioner and a Certified Hypnotherapist since they require so little training; and how the effectiveness of these methods like NLP or Reiki is subject to so much debate!
There’s no other New Thought church close to my house; but fortunately with all the resources in the internet now I’ve been watching really inspiring, motivating, uplifting and encouraging Sunday Messages from amazing Unity and Science of Mind ministers, and that’s where I’ve been sending my tithing! I’m still practicing my yoga and now I started practicing meditation with a very reputable Buddhist Minister and it’s the best thing in the world for me!
I think I will always love what Unity and Science of Mind teach, but I sure will be very careful about blindly trusting the Spiritual Leaders only because they are Unity Ministers ;( And of course, no wonder why the attendance in this church is so low and so many people never come back; besides the ministers don't have any enthusiasm and all they do for their Sunday Messages is read and read!
I just feel that since Unity and Science of Mind are so open minded, some leaders push their own methods for their own selfish reasons.
I guess I trusted these ministers blindly because I really love these teachings and nobody in this area teaches these things. Every other church around here is fundamentalist.
I think it is so important to follow our Inner Guidance; and I know that as I kept going to the 'Violet' church, something inside of me kept sending me messages that those ministers didn't feel right. And it will help if somebody else can learn from my experience to be more careful.
THANK YOU!!