Dreams, Visions and Gnosis: Maurice Nicoll and the Kingdom of Heaven

Maurice Nicoll (1884-1963) Harley Street analytical psychologist trained by CG Jung, and disciple of ‘western gurus’ GI Gurdjieff and PD Ouspensky, became in later years a practitioner and teacher of mystical spirituality. This study traces through Nicoll’s published writings, and through the recently rediscovered Dream Diaries, his spiritual journey from his early rejection of Christianity to his finding ‘what really mattered’ in a re-embrace of his natal religion, but this in a form he saw as far ‘truer’ than what he had earlier rejected. Nicoll learned through practising Gurdjieff’s ‘Work’, his system of spiritual training, that the Kingdom of Heaven is neither a post-mortem experience nor a millennial restoration of Christ’s Kingdom, but a state of psychological or spiritual development, the fulfilment or perfection of the individual life achievable in this life; the Gospels, neither ethical discourse nor historical biography of a god-man describe this spiritual state and how to achieve it. Nicoll’s books The New Man and The Mark, works of biblical exegesis on psychological lines, explain how this message, esoterically encoded in the Gospel narrative, may be interpreted.