Theodosia DeWitt Schobert is best known for compiling and editing the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary. The video you see here is a short 1926 clip of her working on the project that Charles Fillmore handed over to her sometime in the 1920s. Click here to see the entire video.
She is also well known for writing what may be Unity’s most successful book on spiritual healing: Divine Remedies: A Textbook for Christian Healing. The book came out in 1934, a few years after completion of the Bible dictionary.
Prior to both these projects, she was part of the editorial staff that wrote articles for Unity magazine. At some point she was involved in leading Silent Unity but her role in Silent Unity is not clear. It is likely that her work there contributed to the content we find in Divine Remedies. Some of her notable articles in Unity magazine include:
- April 1917. Some of the Functions of the Organism Controlled by the Subconscious Mind, a precursor to Divine Remedies.
- September 1918. The True Character of God. It isn’t clear if this article was an elaboration of the Correspondence School Lesson (series 2, lesson 1) of the same name or if it was an elaboration of that lesson.
- August 1921. Methods of Silent Unity. This article was praised by many for a long time as being the best explanation of how healing is accomplished through Silent Unity.
- December 1923. A Family Talk. This is article addresses the sensitive topic of “virgin marriage”. It’s important to note that many women, such as Agnes Sanford, resisted and detached from Unity because of the teaching on continence.
Theodosia DeWitt was born January 5, 1882, the 3rd of 7 children to a French Canadian family in Ontario. She and her family are shown to be living there in a 1901 Canadian census. The family religion is given as "Followers of Christ". A Wikipedia article indicates that this small sect practices spiritual healing, which may explain how she got connected with Unity.
In 1907 she married Christian Schobert, a German immigrant, according to a Wisconsin marriage record. She and her husband appear in the 1920 and 1930 US Census in Kansas City, Missouri. By 1935 she has left Unity and is living in Dallas, Texas. Several articles in El Paso newspapers report that she gave talks El Paso at the Unity Temple of Truth while visiting her older brother, Norton DeWitt. Her 1974 obituary has her living in McAllen, Texas at the time of her passing, where she had lived for 35 years. It says she was a member of the Unitarian-Universalist Church and the order of Eastern Star. (source: ancestry.com and newspapers.com)
Theodosia DeWitt Schobert was never ordained by Unity. She was one of several women who were powerful Unity leaders in the early years (between 1910 and the mid 1920s). She and her female colleagues, who include Frances Foulks, Ida Palmer, Cora Dedrick and Imelda Shanklin, were followed by male leaders who established a more corporate organization of Unity in the 1920s.
