The Game of Life and How to Play It: The Complete Original Edition

by Florence Scovel Shinn

Most people consider life a battle, but it is not a battle, it is a game.

This means that what man images, sooner or later externalizes in his affairs. I know of a man who feared a certain disease. It was a very rare disease and difficult to get, but he pictured it continually and read about it until it manifested in his body, and he died, the victim of distorted imagination.

A person with an imaging faculty trained to image only good, brings into his life “every righteous desire of his heart”—health, wealth, love, friends, perfect self-expression, his highest ideals.

The superconscious mind is the God Mind within each man, and is the realm of perfect ideas.

In it, is the “perfect pattern” spoken of by Plato, The Divine Design; for there is a Divine Design for each person. “There is a place that you are to fill and no one else can fill, something you are to do, which no one else can do.”

It usually flashes across the conscious as an unattainable ideal—“something too good to be true.” In reality it is man’s true destiny (or destination) flashed to him from the Infinite Intelligence which is within himself.

Many people, however, are in ignorance of their true destinies and are striving for things and situations which do not belong to them, and would only bring failure and dissatisfaction if attained. For example: A woman came to me and asked me to “speak the word” that she would marry a certain man with whom she was very much in love. (She called him A. B.) I replied that this would be a violation of spiritual law, but that I would speak the word for the right man, the “divine selection,” the man who belonged to her by divine right.

added, “If A. B. is the right man you can’t lose him, and if he isn’t, you will ...

This shows the law of substitution. A right idea was substituted for a wrong one, therefore there was no loss or sacrifice involved.

the Kingdom was within man. The Kingdom is the realm of right ideas, or the divine pattern.

The subconscious mind has no sense of humor and people often joke themselves into unhappy experiences.

“Ask, and it shall be given you, seek, and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” (Mat. 7:7.)

Nothing stands between man and his highest ideals and every desire of his heart, but doubt and fear. When man can “wish without worrying,” every desire will be instantly fulfilled.

the scientific reason for this and how fear must be erased from the consciousness. It is man’s only enemy—fear of lack, fear of failure, fear of sickness, fear of loss and a feeling of insecurity on some plane.

So we can see we must substitute faith for fear, for fear is only inverted faith; it is fai...

brilliant man, who has attained great success, told me he had suddenly erased all fear from his consciousness by reading a sign which hung in a room. He saw printed, in large letters this statement—“Why worry, it will probably never happen.” These words were stamped indelibly upon his subconscious mind, and he has now a firm conviction that only good can come into his life, therefore only good can manifest.

Man must prepare for the thing he has asked for, when there isn’t the slightest sign of it in sight.

“I’ll dig my ditches by buying the blankets!” So she prepared for the apartment—acted as though she already had it. She found one in a miraculous way, and it was given to her although there were over two hundred other applicants. The blankets showed active faith.

The children of Israel were told that they could have all the land they could see. This is true of every man. He has only the land within his own mental vision. Every great work, every big accomplishment, has been brought into manifestation through holding to the vision, and often just before the big achievement, comes apparent failure and discouragement.

I knew a man who said, “I always miss a car. It invariably pulls out just as I arrive.” His daughter said: “I always catch a car. It’s sure to come just as I get there.” This occurred for years. Each had made a separate law for himself, one of failure, one of success.

She retraced her steps to the vault, and the ladder was no longer there! This so often happens! If one is willing to do a thing he is afraid to do, he does not have to. It is the law of nonresistance, which is so little understood.

The explanation is, that fear attracted the ladder on the woman’s pathway, and fearlessness removed it.

I reply: “No, I thank you, I’ve had enough old-fashioned chats in my life, they are too expensive, but I will be glad to have a new-fashioned chat, and talk about what we want, not what we don’t want.”

The metaphysician knows that all disease has a mental correspondence, and in order to heal the body one must first “heal the soul.”

She felt hatred and resentment taking complete possession of her, and she cried out, “Oh God don’t let me hate that man.” That night she worked for hours “in the silence.” She said, “I soon came into a very deep silence. I seemed to be at peace with myself, with the man, and with the whole world. I continued this for two following nights, and on the third day I found I was healed completely of the skin disease!” In asking for love, or good will, she had fulfilled the law, (“for love is the fulfilling of the law”) and the disease (which came from subconscious resentment) was wiped out.

A man came to me asking to “treat” for success in business. He was selling machinery, and a rival appeared on the scene with what he proclaimed, was a better machine, and my friend feared defeat. I said, “First of all, we must wipe out all fear, and know that God protects your interests, and that the divine idea must come out of the situation. That is, the right machine will be sold, by the right man, to the right man.” And I added, “Don’t hold one critical thought towards that man. Bless him all day, and be willing not to sell your machine, if it isn’t the divine idea.” So he went to the meeting, fearless and nonresistant, and blessing the other man. He said the outcome was very remarkable. The other man’s machine refused to work, and he sold his without the slightest difficulty. “But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you and persecute you.”

Good-will produces a great aura of protection about the one who sends it, and “No weapon that is formed against him shall prosper.” In other words, love and good-will destroy the enemies within one’s self, therefore, one has no enemies on the external!

I heard a metaphysician once say, “If you do not run your subconscious mind yourself, someone else will run it for you.” Mothers often, unconsciously, attract illness and disaster to their children, by continually holding them in thoughts of fear, and watching for symptoms.

A woman who required money, and who knew the spiritual law of opulence, was thrown continually in a business-way, with a man who made her feel very poor. He talked lack and limitation and she commenced to catch his poverty thoughts, so she disliked him, and blamed him for her failure. She knew in order to demonstrate her supply, she must first feel that she had received—a feeling of opulence must precede its manifestation.

“Bless your enemy, and you rob him of his ammunition.” His arrows will be transmuted into blessings.

“I have a wonderful work, in a wonderful way, I give wonderful service, for wonderful pay!”

It is man’s divine right to have plenty! More than enough! “His barns should be full, and his cup should flow over!” This is God’s idea for man, and when man breaks down the barriers of lack in his own consciousness, the Golden Age will be his, and every righteous desire of his heart fulfilled!

how the lion of lack disappeared when the individual spent money fearlessly, showing faith that God was his supply and therefore, unfailing.

No man can attract money if he despises it. Many people are kept in poverty by saying: “Money means nothing to me, and I have a contempt for people who have it.” This is the reason so many artists are poor. Their contempt for money separates them from it.

This does not mean that man should not have houses and lots, stocks and bonds, for “the barns of the righteous man shall be full.” It means man should not hoard even the principal, if an occasion arises, when money is necessary. In letting it go out fearlessly and cheerfully he opens the way for more to come in, for God is man’s unfailing and inexhaustible supply.

A woman desired a large sum of money. She spoke the words: “Infinite Spirit, open the way for my immediate supply, let all that is mine by divine right now reach me, in great avalanches of abundance.” Then she added: “Give me a definite lead, let me know if there is anything for me to do.”

“I will restore to you the years the locusts have eaten.” The locusts are the doubts, fears, resentments and regrets of mortal thinking.

“Infinite Spirit, open the way for the Divine Design of my life to manifest; let the genius within me now be released; let me see clearly the perfect plan.”

Many a man is building for himself in imagination a bungalow when he should be building a palace.

(For Prosperity) God is my unfailing supply, and large sums of money come to me quickly, under grace, in perfect ways.

(For Right Conditions) Divine Love now dissolves and dissipates every wrong condition in my mind, body and affairs. Divine Love is the most powerful chemical in the universe, and dissolves everything which is not of itself!

(For Health) Divine Love floods my consciousness with health, and every cell in my body is filled with light.

(For Guidance) I am divinely sensitive to my intuitive leads, and give instant obedience to Thy will.