The Game of Transformation is a spiritually interactive board game developed in the 1970s by Joy Drake and Kathy Tyler at the Findhorn Foundation. Since then its application has spread throughout the Community and beyond, and it is difficult to over-state the influence of the Game within the Community’s culture. It has come to be an integral part of the Findhorn experience, for members and guests alike.

Virtually everyone who lives in the Community has played the Game in one of its various forms, and we are all familiar with the Angel Cards, which we pick as individuals, for groups, for the New Year, for new projects, for work departments, for guidance, even for the day ! We are also familiar with the much-loved Blessing Cards, and with the tools and language of Insights and Setbacks. It is perhaps accurate to say that the components of The Game are not only a vital part of the daily cosmology of the Findhorn community, but also part of its folklore, part of its soul.

Joy Drake began developing the original version, then called the Game Of Life, in the early ’70s: “I wanted to recreate the Foundation experience in a way that would allow people to learn the lessons and receive the insights that this environment provides without having to come and live here for years. It was a way of distilling the essence of what happens as we begin to view the whole of life as a learning arena.”

As Joy explored this, she was influenced by a number of other approaches. One of these was a board game called Initiation, devised by David Spangler, in which players progressed to enlightenment through a kind of spiritual ‘snakes and ladders’, where ‘bad karma’ squares sent you backwards while squares with ‘light points’ or ‘good karma’ moved you ahead.

What would happen, Joy wondered, if people had to deal with specific examples of attitudes or behaviours on their paths that either move them ahead or set them back ? She began delving into her own experiences and that of her friends, and so the the Insight and Setback card decks came into being.

Gradually, using the rich resources of many people’s lives and thoughts, all the many aspects that make up the pattern of human life began to be included – miracles, blessings, pain, purpose, insights, dark nights of the soul, intuition, challenges, free will, and the accumulation of ‘form’ or material possessions.

An overall Game framework came into being where players could be ‘born’ into life and grow through the physical, emotional, mental realms, then into the ‘higher’ realms of intuition, love, unity, and on into enlightenment.

The deck of Angel Cards was then created, containing 52 qualities such as Compassion, Power, Grace, Surrender and Healing. Before playing, and after getting clear on their particular purposes, players draw one of these as an inspirational quality to work with throughout their Game. Later the number was increased to 72 qualities.

The purposes the players bring to the Game are the key component in the process. Purposes can be as broad or as specific as players choose, and can deal with the present, the past or the future. However, the most important aspect is that the players intend, and are willing, to achieve their purposes. It is this that allows the experiences that follow to fall into a meaningful pattern – rather like a magnet creating a coherent order out of random iron filings.

Although the original idea for the Game came from Joy, many people were involved in developing and refining it. Principal among these was Kathy Tyler, who arrived at Findhorn in 1978 and established a long-standing creative partnership with Joy.

Joy and Kathy now live in Asheville, North Carolina, USA, where they develop and market a range of transformational Game-based tools through their company InnerLinks Associates (see list below). Mary Inglis is Joy and Kathy’s partner in InnerLinks UK, based in Findhorn, which organises programmes at the Foundation and throughout Europe, as well as in Japan, Russia, South Africa and Latin America. A network of Game facilitators is spread throughout the world.

Different contemporary forms of the Game include the original 4-day Game of Transformation workshop; the commercially available Transformation Game, which can be played at varying levels of intensity with or without a facilitator; and the Planetary Game, a life-sized version with up to 120 players which works with collective as well as personal issues (first played in 1987 in Universal Hall).

A business version, Frameworks for Change, and its spin-off the Frameworks Coaching Process (or FCP) are designed for teams and organisations, and have Mentors and Resources instead of Angels and Blessings.

At this very moment, somewhere in the world, the Game is being played…

Thanks to Mary Inglis for most of the above information and text.

Game of Transformation products

This is a list of Game-based items produced and marketed by Innerlinks.

1. ANGEL CARDS (Set of illustrated cards, 1981)

2. BLESSING CARDS (Set of illustrated cards, 1982)

3. THE TRANSFORMATION GAME (Board game, 1987)

4. SOLO & EARTH-SOLO SUPPLEMENT (Supplement to board game, 1992)

5. ANGEL STICKERS (1992)

6. ANGEL COMPANION (Pendant, 1994)

7. INTUITIVE SOLUTIONS (Sets of cards, 1996)

8. ANGEL CARDS PLUS SCREENSAVER
(Computer software containing on-screen cards and screensaver, 1997)

9. ANGEL CARDS BOOK (1999)

10. BLESSING CARDS IN A BOWL (2003)

11. MENTORSPIRIT CARDS (Set of illustrated cards, 2004)

Note. The following items have not been commercially issued but are made available to participants in trainings :

12. FRAMEWORKS FOR CHANGE (1993)

13. FRAMEWORKS COACHING PROCESS (2003)

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A Living Record of the Findhorn Foundation and Community contents 

© 2004-5 Mike Scott/Findhorn Foundation 

Section 18, “Game of Transformation” text © InnerLinks