Since the first Game workshop was offered there in 1978, thousands of people have played the Game in its various forms. Many more have worked with the Angel® Cards, with over a million Angel decks sold to date. Several programmes and products now make up the Game 'family' and are available world-wide through InnerLinks, a consulting and training company based both in the USA and UK. InnerLinks researches and develops Transformation Game products, programmes and trainings, and is the only organisation that trains and accredits Faciltators to work with the Game professionally. The Findhorn Foundation, where the Game was originally developed, is the centre for Game programmes in Europe.

The original version of the Game was developed by Joy Drake , who lived at the Findhorn Foundation for 15 years. "I wanted to recreate the 'Findhorn experience' in a way that would allow people to learn the lessons and receive the insights that that environment provides without having to go and live there for three years," she says. "It was a way of distilling the essence of the educational process that happens as we begin to view the whole of life as a learning arena."

Although the original idea for the Game came from Joy, many people were involved in developing and refining it. Principle among these was Kathy Tyler, who with Joy developed the commercially available Transformation box Game. But there were also many hours of playing with 'Game devotees' on makeshift Game boards, intense brainstorming and feedback sessions, and long philosophical discussions on the nature of pain, creativity, God, spirituality, the personality, wholeness, how the world works, and a variety of other topics.

Different forms of the Game now include the commercially available Transformation Game, which can be played at varying levels of intensity, with or without a facilitator; a more indepth intensive 4-day workshop; various team versions applicable to particular situations and groups; and the Planetary Game, a life-sized version of the Game which works with collective as well as personal issues. There is also an organisational version, Frameworks for Change, a self-directed learning programme which provides a creative space for teams and organisations to examine their responses to their own working environments and team challenges. A coaching tool, the Frameworks Coaching Process, is also available, based on the cards from the full Frameworks simulation.

InnerLinks trains facilitators for the various versions of the Game, as well as offering workshops and programmes which encourage personal creativity and foster collective awareness and responsibility. The Transformation Game Facilitators Training is a specialised intensive which gives thorough training in the use of advanced rules in a Facilitators Manual. Only people trained and accredited by InnerLinks may work professionally with The Transformation Game ® and use the name and logo.

* For information about Transformation Game workshops and trainings at the Findhorn Foundation, click here: http://www.findhorn.info/workshops/workshopspage/game.php

For information about the Findhorn Foundation, click here: www.findhorn.org

For information about Game workshops and trainings in the USA and elsewhere in the world, click on: http://www.innerlinks.com