Anxiety
The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, in "The Concept of Anxiety" (1844), described anxiety or dread associated with the "dizziness of freedom" and suggested the possibility for positive resolution of anxiety through the self-conscious exercise of responsibility and choosing. In "Art and Artist" (1932), the psychologist Otto Rank wrote that the psychological trauma of birth was the pre-eminent human symbol of existential anxiety and encompasses the creative person's simultaneous fear of – and desire for – separation, individuation, and differentiation.
Scientology and the occult
Arthur J. Burks, who read the work in 1938, later recalled it discussed the "one command": to survive, a theme that Hubbard revisited in "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health". Burks also recalled that the work discussed the psychology of a lynch mob. Hubbard cited "Excalibur" as an early version of "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health".