Why this book: Recommended to me by a woman I often refer to as my “spiritual advisor.” I have considered her advice and perspective “sage” and very helpful to me, and when she suggested that I look at this little book, I did. Indeed I find that my friend’s insights seem to come in large part from what she has garnered from this book and how she has used it to understand her own experience.

My Impressions: I can’t say that I’ve read anything in The Game of Life and How to Play It that I haven’t read or heard before. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t read or hear it again, and again, and again. And I expect to re-read this book, perhaps several times. At least I should.   It is very nicely packaged into about 90 pages – almost a pamphlet of this woman’s perspectives, written down nearly a century ago, not published until 1925, and she has been dead for over 70 years. Yet in many ways, it is timeless.

It has a strong Christian message, but it is clearly written for those with a VERY broad understanding of Christianity. I almost sense that her strongly Christian approach is in order to appeal to her target audience of the early 20^th century, but her message is very Universal Religion in its tone, and Buddhists, Jews, spiritualists, Hindus, agnostic spiritualists (like me) and many others would be very at comfortable with her message.

She strongly advocates the power of words to bring thoughts and desires into fruition. She advocates properly verbalizing what we want, putting these desires into the form of an affirmation, and then that we repeat these affirmations regularly and believe in them with an open heart, connected to the “Infinite Spirit.”   She offers us a number of universal or spiritual laws, and writes of The Law of Karma, The Law of Substitution,The Law of Non-Resistance, The Law of Use, The Law of Forgiveness, The Law of Love, Divine Pattern and Intuition.

The Game of Life could almost be a spiritual handbook to go with two books I’ve reviewed previously – Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist, and the Business Leadership book Synchronicity.

Her message is to get in synch with the “Infinite Spirit” and in that process, to visualize what we want in life. With that connection to God, and her proposed method of visualization and affirmation, we should get the riches and life we deserve, “by divine right.” She goes back and forth between advocating affirmations that have a specific request, and advocating affirmations that ask the “Infinite Spirit” to provide the right thing – what one needs, what will fit “the divine pattern,” if that may not be what we specifically want.

She advocates expecting and believing in the good things we want -and preparing our heart, our mind, our lives to receive it. She offers many, many examples of people who have done so, and seemingly miraculously, their wishes have been fulfilled. Whether one fully accepts her thesis of visualization, affirmations, faith and spirituality leading us to the pot at the end of the rainbow, her message is compelling, and in my own opinion, powerful.