In Mesopotamia - Primary Source Edition

by Maurice Nicoll

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Genres: History

180 pages, Paperback

First published October 4, 2009

About the author

Maurice Nicoll (19 July 1884 – 30 August 1953) was a British psychiatrist, author and noted Fourth Way teacher. He is best known for his Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, a multi-volume collection of talks he gave to his study groups.
Nicoll was born at the Manse in Kelso, Scotland, the son of William Robertson Nicoll, a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He studied science at Cambridge before going on to St. Bartholomew's Hospital and then to Vienna, Berlin, and Zurich where he became a colleague of Carl Gustav Jung. Jung's psychological revelations and his own work with Jung during this period left a lasting influence on Nicoll as a young man.

After his Army Medical Service in the 1914 War, in Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, he returned to England to become a psychiatrist. In 1921 he met Petr Demianovich Ouspensky, a student of G. I. Gurdjieff and he also became a pupil of Gurdjieff in the following year. In 1923 when Gurdjieff closed down his Institute, Nicoll joined P.D. Ouspensky's group. In 1931 he followed Ouspensky's advice and started his own study groups in England. This was done through a program of work devoted to passing on the ideas that Nicoll had gathered and passed them on through his talks given weekly to his own study groups.

Many of these talks were recorded verbatim and documented in a six-volume series of texts compiled in his books Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.

Nicoll also authored books and stories about his experiences in the Middle East using the pseudonym Martin Swayne.

Though Nicoll advocated the theories of the Fourth Way he also maintained interests in essential Christian teachings, in Neoplatonism and in dream interpretation until the end of his life.