Many years before founding the Church of Scientology, science fiction author L. Ronald Hubbard wrote a book called Excalibur. Contrary to what you may think, it does not talk about King Arthur’s mythical sword. He recounted his experience with death, claiming he died one day and came back to tell his story.
The story begins in 1938 when Lafayette Ronald Hubbard underwent a medical treatment that almost killed him as his body reacted poorly to nitrous oxide (while it causes uncontrollable laughter and euphoria in some people, the gas almost killed him).
In subsequent interviews, he claimed that he did indeed die for eight minutes, during which he supposedly received a message that he had to deliver to humanity no matter what. Shortly thereafter, he locked himself up for six days to write the book that we now know as Excalibur.
In addition to recounting his experience beyond death, L. Ron Hubbard raises several existential questions and provides his own answers about the life of human beings on Earth. Those who believe in Scientology consider Excalibur to have served as the basis for later works such as Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health in 1950 and, in general, for laying the foundations of the religion he created.
After the book was finished, the legend began that Excalibur was a cursed book. No publisher wanted to buy Hubbard’s manuscript. Years later, his literary agent even stated that the writer himself told him about the sad fate of those who read it: “Everyone who read it went crazy and committed suicide.”
He also recounted showing the book to an editor in New York, who called his reader. The reader arrived with the manuscript in his hands, placed it on the table, and jumped out of the skyscraper window.
L. Ron Hubbard also said that, of the first 15 people who read it, four ended up in a psychiatric hospital. For that reason, he asked that the contents of Excalibur not be disseminated during his “stay on Earth.” Few have read it, but if it could be summarized in one word, it would be “survival.”
The founder of Scientology concluded that all creatures on this planet seek, above all else, to survive. From there, he worked on several ideas that purport to answer ancient questions about the existence of God, the origin of the world, and the future of humanity.
