Florence Scovel Shinn's books have been reprinted continually since her death in 1940. These metaphysical works were published privately during her lifetime, but Simon & Schuster and the Church of Religious Science have made them a staple of New Age bookstores everywhere today. Shinn developed her beliefs from such mystical sources as Freemasonry and ancient Egyptian philosophy. The Game of Life and How to Play It and The Secret Door to Success are often seen as blueprints to today's most popular self-improvement books. Shinn's influence has proven so great that two researchers have compared her writings with the work of the father of positive thinking, Norman Vincent Peale, and have… concluded that some of Peale's theories originated with Shinn.