Leslie Stein, J.D. is a Jungian psychoanalyst (and a former attorney, law professor and judge) in private practice in Sydney, Australia.
Born and raised on the streets of the Bronx, his path was rather different from other analysts.
He attended the State University of New York where he earned a degree in sociology and psychology, and played basketball, and then went on to law school in Toronto, later becoming a law professor and, for 10 years, served as a judge.
In the mid 1980s, he trained as a Jungian analyst in Australia and attended the C.G. Jung Institute of New York and started a private practice but left it behind to pursue his particular specialty of devising legal mechanisms to improve mental health in urban areas. He completed a master’s degree in law at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto and thereafter has been a professor at law schools and urban planning schools in Canada, the US, England, Australia, and India. He also practiced law as a senior trial attorney and was retained as a negotiator on complex commercial transactions in Russia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and London.
He has written five books on how to make our decaying cities livable. This has resulted in him being sought out as a consultant to the United Nations and governments around the world on managing urban blight, homelessness, the effects of climate change, and the inclusion of mental health in strategic planning. His work on strategic planning for neighborhoods was given an award by the United States Congress of New Urbanism and he was, among other appointments, invited to be the Visiting Scholar at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University and Senior Fellow for four years at the Global Center for Environmental Legal Studies in New York. He is now a member of the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney.
It was on a trip to India for the UN on the urban planning of Varanasi that his interest in mysticism was awakened and he then returned full time to practice as an analyst, spending long months in India and enrolling at the C.G. Jung Institute in New York to refresh his work. Since then, he has written or edited six books on Jungian thought reflecting that interest, including, Working with Mystical Experiences in Psychoanalysis, The Self in Jungian Psychology, which was awarded the prize of Best Theoretical Book of 2022 by the International Association of Jungian Studies, Becoming Whole: Jung’s Equation for Realizing God, and his first novel The Journey of Adam Kadmon. He is editor and contributor of Eastern Practices & Individuation: Essays by Jungian Analysts, Psychedelics & Individuation: Essays By Jungian Analysts (with Lionel Corbett), as well as Varieties of Nothingness (with the physicist Dean Rickles), all published by Chiron Publications.
His latest book, The Psychoanalysis of Dr. Seele: A Novel, was published by Arcade Publishing in New York, the imprint that first published Samuel Beckett, Kurt Vonnegut, and Mo Yan who won the Nobel Prize. The novel was released in New York this past February.
This video interview was recorded on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. It’s 1:01:22 long and 58.9 MB. You can listen to it right here in your browser (click the play button in the bar below) or watch the video edition on our YouTube channel.
SHOW NOTES
Temenos Dream Dream recording, tracking and interpretation app available for iOS and Android
Speaking of Jung, Ep. 113 with Leslie Stein (Aug. 31, 2022)
The Psychoanalysis of Dr. Seele: A Novel Arcade Publishing, 2025
Splendor Solis: Alchemical Treatises of Solomon Trismosin, Adept and Teacher of Paracelsus Including 22 allegorical pictures reproduced from the original paintings in the unique manuscript on vellum, British Museum 1582 (full PDF) – Cover image for The Psychoanalysis of Dr. Seele is plate XI: The Seventh Parable; cover image for The Journey of Adam Kadmon is plate VIII: The Fourth Parable.
The Journey of Adam Kadmon: A Novel Arcade Publishing, 2012
Spiegelungen der Seele: Projektion und innere Sammlung in der Psychologie C.G. Jung by Marie-Louise von Franz, Ph.D.
Book of Enoch Wikipedia (I don’t typically like to cite Wikipedia, but this page is pretty inclusive.)
Eranos: A Play by Murray Stein, Ph.D. and Henry Abramovitch, Ph.D.
The Analyst and the Rabbi by Murray Stein, Ph.D. and Henry Abramovitch, Ph.D.
Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C.G. Jung and Aniela Jaffé
The Zofingia Lectures The Collected Works of C.G. Jung – Supplements (2024)
The Red Book: Liber Novus by C.G. Jung (24% off at Amazon US)
Symbols of Transformation The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 5 (includes the Miss Miller fantasies)
Psychedelics & Individuation: Essays by Jungian Analysts Edited by Jungian psychoanalysts Leslie Stein, J.D. and Lionel Corbett, M.D.
Speaking of Jung, Ep. 128 with Jungian psychoanalyst Linda Carter, M.S.N. (Nov. 8. 2023)
Psychedelics & Individuation: Conversations with Jungian Analysts Chiron Publications’ 2023 book launch and conference at the Pacifica Graduate Institute (Dec. 15-17, 2023)
2025 International Congress of Analytical Psychology Zürich, Switzerland (Aug. 24-29, 2025)
BOOKS BY LESLIE STEIN
Becoming Whole: Jung’s Equation for Realizing God Helios Press, 2012
The Journey of Adam Kadmon: A Novel Arcade Publishing, 2012
Working with Mystical Experiences in Psychoanalysis: Opening to the Numinous Routledge, 2019
The Self in Jungian Psychology: Theory & Clinical Practice Chiron Publications, 2021
Eastern Practices & Individuation: Essays by Jungian Analysts (Editor) Chiron Publications, 2022
Psychedelics & Individuation: Essays by Jungian Analysts (Editor) Chiron Publications, 2023
The Psychoanalysis of Dr. Seele: A Novel Arcade Publishing, 2025