Nicoll was born at the manse in
Kelso, Scotland, the son of
William Robertson Nicoll, a minister of the
Free Church of Scotland and renowned man of letters. From 1903 to 1906 Nicoll studied science at
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, earning First Class Honours in the
Natural Science Tripos. From 1906 to 1910 he attended
St Bartholomew's Hospital qualifying in medicine as a surgeon and neurologist. In addition to his personal friendship with Jung, from 1912 through 1921 Nicoll published a number of articles on Jung's theories in professional journals, so it would not have been out of character for Nicoll to have served as a Jungian proxy at his
Harley Street, London, medical practice. Following his service as a captain in the
Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War, where he first treated the wounded at the
Gallipoli,
Suvla Bay offensive, and after recovering from dysentery, he arrived with the 32nd Field Hospital of the 10th Irish division and did the same at the
Siege of Kut, in
Mesopotamia. In October 1921 he met
P. D. Ouspensky, a student and then a teacher of
George Gurdjieff's
Fourth Way. and by that fall he, his wife Catherine, Jane, and the child's nanny arrived at the
Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man outside Paris. In the summer of 1923, when Gurdjieff closed down his institute, Nicoll joined Ouspensky's group. In 1931 he followed Ouspensky's advice and started his own study groups in England. Many of these talks were recorded verbatim and documented in a six-volume series of texts compiled in his book series
Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. Nicoll is best known as a teacher and practitioner of the
Fourth Way or
esoteric Christianity of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, but as his authorised biographer
Beryl Pogson notes he privately read
Swedenborg and the Gospels. His associated reflections on
Neoplatonism,
Gnosticism,
Hermeticism,
Alchemy,
Sufism,
Greek philosophy,
Jakob Böhme,
William Blake, along with variety of Indian and Chinese traditions (not to mention an assortment of individuals throughout history who have commented on consciousness) are as a whole present in
Living Time and the Integration of the Life (completed by WWII but not published until 1952); yet both his published works and private papers have for the most part been publicly commented upon only infrequently. == Bibliography ==