Educated at Caius College, Cambridge and St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London, Nicoll continued his medical studies in Vienna, Berlin, Paris and finally Zurich. While at Zurich he became acquainted with Carl Jung who would greatly influence Nicoll's views of psychology. He served as a medical officer during the First World War and was at both Gallipoli in 1915 and Mesopotamia in 1916. After the war, he returned to England to continue work in psychiatry. Nicoll was also interested in writing and had published his first story, A Game of Consequences, in the October 1911 issue of London Magazine, using the pseudonym of Martin Swayne. He continued to write stories until well into the 1920's. His first work of non-fiction, Dream Psychology, was published in 1917. He became friends with Petr Ouspensky in 1921 and began attending courses held by G. I. Gurdjieff and studied the 'Fourth Way' of self-improvement, becoming one of its staunchest advocates. During his long career he served as medical officer at Empire Hospital, Lecturer in Medical Psychology at Birmingham University and edited the Journal of Neurology and Psychopathology. His other works include The New Man (1950), Commentaries on the Teaching of G. I. Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky (1952) and Living Time (1952). |
