Introduction
Most people view life as a hard struggle filled with lack, sickness, and fear. You might find yourself trapped in repeating patterns of limitation, wondering why hard work fails to bring lasting peace or financial security. You may feel that adverse circumstances control your destiny and that you are powerless against external conditions.
Florence Scovel Shinn argues in The Game of Life and How to Play It that life is not a battle, but a game. This game cannot be won without an understanding of spiritual laws that govern human consciousness. The author demonstrates that your words, mental pictures, and beliefs dictate your everyday reality through the strict rule of cause and effect. Whatever you send out in word or deed eventually returns to you.
Mastering this game requires aligning your thoughts and speech with divine principles rather than fighting the conditions around you. You must learn to control your spoken word, cast your burdens onto the superconscious mind, and follow intuitive leads without hesitation. The book provides a practical guide for transforming lack into abundance, resentment into forgiveness, and fear into absolute faith.
- How do your everyday words attract lack or prosperity into your experience?
- What spiritual law neutralizes past mistakes and heavy karmic debts?
- How can you discover your divine design and achieve perfect self-expression?
- Why does fighting an adverse situation give it more power over you?
1. The Game
Most people consider life a battle. Florence Scovel Shinn argues that life is a game of giving and receiving. What you send out in words, deeds, or mental pictures will eventually return to you.
Life is a game of giving and receiving where whatever you send out in words or mental pictures eventually returns to you.
Giving and Receiving
You cannot win the game of life without understanding the law of karma. Success requires playing with confidence and absolute trust in unseen spiritual laws.
The Scissors of the Mind
Your imaging faculty acts as the scissors of the mind. You continually cut out the pictures of events that will later manifest in your physical experience.
A man constantly read about and feared a rare disease until it manifested in his body and caused his death.
A woman who constantly played the role of a widow with black clothes and a veil as a child eventually grew up, married, and was widowed shortly after.
Three Departments of Mind
Mastering the game requires you to understand the three distinct levels of human consciousness:
- The subconscious mind is pure power without direction, acting like electricity to carry out whatever is deeply felt or clearly imaged.
- The conscious mind sees life as it appears, relies on physical evidence, and deals with mortal limitations.
- The superconscious mind is the God Mind containing the divine pattern or true destiny for each individual.
2. The Law Of Prosperity
You can demonstrate supply and manifest abundance by preparing in advance and following your inner intuition.
Infinite Intelligence operates on a spiritual plane to open ways for abundance. When facing a crisis or lack, you must follow your inner intuition rather than relying solely on logical intellect. Intuition serves as your unerring guide from within. Following a hunch can lead to miraculous resolutions in moments of scarcity.
A woman with only eight dollars and a hunch to go home followed her intuition. She subsequently received thousands of dollars through an old family friend.
Following Intuition
Your conscious mind often blocks supply through doubt and reason. Intuition cuts through mental obstacles to guide your next step. You must obey a sudden lead without questioning how the result will arrive.
Active Faith and Digging Ditches
To demonstrate supply and manifest desires, you must prepare for what you have asked for before any visible sign of it appears. Acting as though you have already received your request demonstrates active faith. This attitude breaks down the subconscious barriers of doubt, fear, and lack.
Three kings in the desert made their valley full of ditches as instructed by the prophet Elisha. They did this before any wind or rain arrived, and the ditches were filled to overflowing.
You can apply this principle in daily decisions:
- prepare for the opportunity you desire before it appears;
- act with the absolute expectation of supply;
- clear your mental space of doubt and limitation.
A distressed woman needed three thousand dollars and received the exact amount through her cousin. Another applicant secured an apartment despite competing against two hundred other applicants by maintaining active faith.
3. The Power Of The Word
Words carry immense vibratory force, and people continually make laws for themselves and attract experiences through idle or spoken statements.
The subconscious mind lacks a sense of humor. Jokes or careless statements about lack, sickness, or disaster are registered literally and carried out in detail. Conversely, speaking positive affirmations with faith can completely alter adverse conditions.
A wealthy woman who repeatedly joked about getting ready for the poorhouse became almost destitute in a few years.
You can prevent such results by guarding your speech:
- watch for careless statements about poverty or illness;
- cancel every negative remark immediately;
- replace idle words with constructive affirmations.
Mental Root of Disease
All physical sickness and unhappiness originate from a mind not at ease and specifically from the violation of the law of love or unforgiveness.
Critical thoughts, resentment, jealousy, and unforgiveness produce physical ailments such as rheumatism, arterial hardening, and skin conditions. Healing the subconscious mind of these emotional blocks leads to physical healing.
An actress who was dismissed due to a colleague's jealousy worked in silence until she felt peace toward the man, and her incurable skin disease healed completely on the third day. A woman quarreled with nineteen people before attracting a poisoned oyster.
4. The Law Of Nonresistance
Nothing on earth can resist an absolutely nonresistant person, because fighting an adverse situation only gives it power.
Resistance stems from the illusion of two opposing powers of good and evil. Florence Scovel Shinn calls this illusion Maya the Tree of Illusion or soul sleep. You must stop fighting conditions that appear undesirable in your life.
- Bless the adverse situation instead of resisting it.
- Baptize it as success.
- Face it fearlessly to make it fall away of its own weight.
A woman who was terrified of walking under a ladder returned to face it after remembering the law, and found that the ladder had disappeared.
Overcoming Fear
Fear attracts the very thing you dread into your experience. You must replace every fearful thought with faith and absolute nonresistance.
Adverse conditions lose their momentum once you stop feeding them with your resistance. When you turn and face a difficult situation without fear, it crumbles.
5. The Law Of Karma And The Law Of Forgiveness
You reap what you sow through the law of karma, but the higher law of grace and forgiveness neutralizes your past mistakes.
Every word, thought, and deed returns to you as a boomerang. You cannot escape this mechanical return of cause and effect.
The Boomerang
The Law Of Karma operates in every area of human experience. What you send out in consciousness comes back to your own door.
A woman once joked by sending stage money to a friend. Shortly after, she received a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill from a bank. The issue was resolved harmoniously after she called on the law of forgiveness.
Law of Grace
You are not permanently bound by the painful consequences of your past errors. Christianity and spiritual understanding introduce the higher law of grace.
Invoking the Law Of Forgiveness through the Christ within frees you from karma. You step out of the strict cycle of cause and effect into divine mercy.
6. Casting The Burden
You must shift mental burdens of doubt and fear to the superconscious mind so your good can manifest.
Carrying worries about lack or resentment violates spiritual law. The reasoning mind is limited and cannot direct the subconscious effectively.
Shifting the Weight
You clear your vision by casting the burden onto the Christ within or superconscious mind.
The carnal mind is plagued by doubts and fears. Shifting the burden allows the adverse thought to dissolve into nothingness.
A student wanted to keep her old piano when a new one arrived with nowhere to put it. She repeated, "I cast this burden on the Christ within, and I go free," and a friend called shortly after to rent the old piano just minutes before the new one arrived.
Signs of Land
Active faith serves as a bridge to the promised land. You demonstrate it by preparing physically for what is desired.
Preliminary signs appear before the full demonstration arrives. You should recognize them as seaweed and birds indicating land is near.
- Look out for small preliminary signs of land.
- Treat early indicators as proof that supply is close.
- Avoid mistaking preliminary items for the final demonstration.
- Refuse to become disappointed when small tokens arrive first.
A woman spoke the word for a set of dishes and received only a cracked plate from a friend. The author advised her to view it as birds and seaweed signaling land, and soon after the full set of dishes arrived.
7. Love
Real love acts as a cosmic phenomenon that pours itself out without demanding a return. Jealousy, criticism, and resentment destroy affection and attract suffering into your daily experience.
True selfless love acts as a magnetic force that draws your own to you without demanding a return.
You often fall into a soul sleep caused by selfishness. Suffering acts as a wake-up call to shake you out of that state. You must learn to bless enemies and see the divinity in every person.
- Refuse to demand a return on your affection.
- Bless your enemies and wish them well.
- See the divinity in every person you meet.
A woman whose lover left her and said he would never marry her was advised to stop hating him. After she genuinely achieved inner peace and blessed him, he suddenly returned and asked her to marry him.
The Law of Use
Money must be kept in circulation and treated with harmony because hoarding, greed, or despising wealth separates you from your financial supply. Money represents freedom from want and limitation when kept in active circulation.
Hoarding money, saving principal out of fear, or having contempt for wealth creates mental congestion and blocks the flow of supply.
You draw from the Bank of the Universal when you put money to right uses. A rich woman hoarded sixty-seven necklaces and closets full of unworn clothes. She gradually lost the use of her arms from holding onto things, and her wealth was eventually handed over to others to manage.
8. Intuition Or Guidance
Making a demand requires speaking the word and then waiting quietly for a definite intuitive lead or hunch before taking action.
The reasoning mind often resists intuitive leads because they may seem illogical. Intuition is a spiritual faculty that simply points the way without explaining. You must follow divine guidance rather than mere human calculation.
Unerring Guide
- Watch for a distinct hunch before you act.
- Recognize that the reasoning mind blocks spiritual direction.
- Obey instructions even when they appear unreasonable.
A woman asked for a lead on using a large sum of money. She felt the hunch to give one hundred dollars to a spiritual friend. Despite initial hesitation, she gave it and later received a large sum of money in a remarkable way.
Tithing and Giving
Giving money or tithing opens up financial activity. You should set aside one-tenth of your income for tithing.
When you give, your supply multiplies. The action must follow spiritual direction to produce the right results.
9. Perfect Self-Expression Or The Divine Design
Every person has a unique destiny and a place waiting to be filled. You can experience complete fulfillment only when you find your true path.
Your unique destiny and perfect self-expression are held in Divine Mind as a square of health, wealth, love, and self-expression.
The Square of Life
The four elements of health, wealth, love, and perfect self-expression make up the square of life that brings true happiness. Most people fail to realize their complete square. You may achieve wealth while your health fails, or find love without financial supply.
When you demand the divine design of your life, hidden talents are released. Work ceases to be labor and feels like play. You are guided effortlessly into your rightful place.
Master Architect
The Master Architect holds the blueprint of your life. You must align your mental pictures with this higher plan rather than your own limited desires.
A man who had only seven cents left in the world gave one cent to the author. He asked her to speak the word for his prosperity and perfect self-expression. A year later he returned successful and happy with a roll of yellow bills.
10. Denials And Affirmations
Prayer operates through commands, demands, denials, and thanksgiving, requiring the student to start at the journey's end by affirming they have already received.
Because human expectation is often limited, you must phrase demands carefully to manifest under grace in a perfect way. Affirmations establish beliefs in the subconscious through repetition. Active faith bridges the gap between the invisible request and visible manifestation.
Starting at Journey's End
You must start at the journey's end. When you make a request, you should speak as though you already possess the good you seek.
A woman needed one hundred dollars by the next day, spoke the word, and later found a new one-hundred-dollar bill at the bottom of her safety-deposit box which she was certain she had never placed there.
Truth Made Manifest
Idle words store negative patterns in your thought life. You displace those old beliefs with denials and affirmations.
- Use denials to wipe out false mental images.
- Use affirmations to write new divine truths on your subconscious.
- Phrase every demand to allow grace rather than struggle.
Conclusion
You master the game of life by uniting the spiritual laws of thought, word, and action into a single daily practice.
The teachings fit together as a precise instrument for mental transformation. You start by recognizing that your inner speech creates your outer reality. You stop projecting fear or criticism into the world and instead monitor your vocabulary. When unwanted conditions appear, you refuse to fight them through nonresistance, choosing to bless the situation or cast your burden entirely onto the superconscious mind. You clear the slate of past mistakes through the law of forgiveness, ensuring that old karma no longer blocks your path. You align your actions with intuition, waiting for the inner flash before you move. You hold the vision of your divine design, speaking affirmations that imprint the subconscious mind with success, health, and love. You give freely without demanding returns, trusting that the universal supply will flow back to you multiplied.
To apply these principles successfully every day, follow these practical rules:
- Watch your thoughts and words constantly, replacing every negative statement with a constructive affirmation.
- Cast your worries immediately onto the superconscious mind and refuse to take them back.
- Act on your intuition the moment it arrives, no matter how illogical the step may seem.
- Bless every hard situation you encounter and watch it lose its power over you.
- Prepare for your good in advance by making ready for the things you have asked for.
- Forgive everyone who has wronged you to clear the channel for your own supply.
- Demand your divine design and perfect self-expression, leaving the exact method of delivery to infinite intelligence.
10 Key Ideas
- Life is a game of giving and receiving where whatever you send out in words or mental pictures eventually returns to you.
- Mastering the game requires you to understand the three distinct levels of human consciousness: the subconscious mind, the conscious mind, and the superconscious mind.
- You can demonstrate supply and manifest abundance by preparing in advance and following your inner intuition.
- Words carry immense vibratory force, and people continually make laws for themselves and attract experiences through idle or spoken statements.
- Nothing on earth can resist an absolutely nonresistant person, because fighting an adverse situation only gives it power.
- You reap what you sow through the law of karma, but the higher law of grace and forgiveness neutralizes your past mistakes.
- You must shift mental burdens of doubt and fear to the superconscious mind so your good can manifest.
- True selfless love acts as a magnetic force that draws your own to you without demanding a return.
- Making a demand requires speaking the word and then waiting quietly for a definite intuitive lead or hunch before taking action.
- Your unique destiny and perfect self-expression are held in Divine Mind as a square of health, wealth, love, and self-expression.