Seeking The Original NBI Basic Principles of Objectivism Lectures


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Jerry,

Thank you for interrupting the spread of the incomplete, but germinating meme that the Brandens were the cause of the cult-like stuff in Objectivism--and your observation that the real fountainhead is Rand herself. (I know, I know, groan... :smile: )

I've always thought that Rand was the image that got mirrored. The fact that the cult-like stuff continued after the break is a pretty compelling argument that this was the case.

I will lay one thing at the feet of the Brandens. They were far better direct response marketers than the others, including Rand. Her way of marketing was to seek out people of influence, convince them of what she wanted, then let them do the rest. See her letters for corroboration. That's how she published her books, staged her play, etc.

But the Brandens knew how to sell to the public from scratch. So while they were at the helm, the cult-like part of the "Objectivist movement" grew. And that's the only way it could grow. It's hard to get people of influence into that stuff.

Notice that direct response marketing is how The Objectivist Newsletter (later The Objectivist) grew.

When the Brandens left, the size of the cult-like part dwindled, but it didn't go away. The periodicals ended up losing subscribers. The Ayn Rand Letter was a commercial disaster compared to before. So what changed? Rand didn't. Those who sided with her didn't.

The direct-response marketing sure did.

I say the Brandens were good marketers, not evil cult founders who obstructed Rand's shining vision. That last image is the underlying theme Peikoff and those who think like he does would love to turn into a meme. That's what PARC was all about.

On the good side, ARI has been doing some effective things to spread Rand's ideas. It distributes Rand's works for free to high schools, sponsors essay contests for students, etc. But the real work of spreading Rand's ideas to the public at large has been Rand's fiction works, and now the AS movies. In other words, Rand in the free-market, not Rand in the sponsored ivory tower. Selling it in free-market is where it happens. And I think that is fitting.

I believe direct response marketing could work again, but it would need some thought and structure to get it right. For now, large corporation marketing it is.

Here is one comment I have on the NBI tapes. There is a flaming Randroid who loathes the Brandens named Bill Bucko. Back when I did a lot of research on digging up the tapes for something I was wanting to write, I came across posts by him in several places online--he was talking about being friends with the guy (now deceased) who used to do the audio work for Nathaniel. And I believe this is the person who turned the tapes over to ARI. I don't have time to look into it right now, but if anyone is interested, Bucko is a good person to look into. If memory serves me well, you can find his comments on Amazon reviews of O-Land stuff (including PARC), at Betty Speicher's forum, OO (but I'm not so sure about that one), maybe in Noodlefood comments, and so forth.

Michael

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The Ayn Rand Letter was a commercial disaster compared to before.

I don't know where the data or evidence is to support this statement, Michael. Unlike The Objectivist, The Ayn Rand Letter's circulation figures were private. Even if, say, 15,000 subscribers of the former had dwindled to 5000 for the latter you'll still have rough parity with the advantage to the former but no "disaster" in terms of gross income. My guess is the new publication started out with over 10,000 that seriously dwindled over its life as people lost interest in continual cultural commentary, even from her, as opposed to heavier intellectual stuff, all made worse by Ayn Rand falling more and more behind in the publication schedule. I base this on my experience as a subscriber and feel I had for the type of person likely to have been a subscriber back in the late 1960s, but I do not really know most of this stuff.

Ex-the quote above, the cult continued to exist because Peikoff took over the practical job of ostensive cult leader with Rand out of that loop even though she continued as its backbone with her reputation and implicit presence. The biggie, though, was and is the followers who want to be followers. It always was with various degrees and types of innocence and guilt. I think there is a tendency to grow out of that cult as people mature and re-evaluate what the hell is really going on. In a sense even I am still doing that.

Except for her glamorous presence, I think Barbara Branden had little to do with the cult aspects of Objectivism served up by NBI. I found hers to be quite the human face and attitude in the little experience I had with her in 1968 pre-break and there was no real subsequent change except more openness and warmth. Or, evolutionary, not revolutionary. Revolutionary was for Nathaniel. He later said that the break with Rand--the blow up--was one of the best things that ever happened to him. To him. He wasn't saying that all those people who were hurt didn't count or 1968 wasn't hell for all concerned. That was his long-term perspective on his life relative to Objectivism and as a movement he was a major part of. The conflict and its cause should have been dealt with and settled in private. It was Rand who marched it out into the public eye. By doing that and by what she said the way she said it she was implicitly sanctioning and demanding that the cult of Ayn Rand was to continue on her terms and without him.

--Brant

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Brant,

I remember reading something in the bios about the drop in subscribers with The Ayn Rand Letter. I would have to look it up for sure, but it's not worth the time right now. And obviously, your mileage varies from mine for the expression "commercial disaster compared to before." In my judgment, I'm looking at The Ayn Rand Letter more in terms of business profits and you are seeing it within the frame of a self-sustaining hobby. As a self-sustaining hobby, I agree it was quite successful. As a business with a future, it was a disaster.

But my point was also based on my own experiences as a subscriber. In fact, I first subscribed in Boston, then moved to Brazil. For the longest time I thought the delays were because I had moved to a different country, even as I had to pay for extra postage, and even as I looked at the date on the stamp every time the long-awaited envelope came.

I hung on as a subscriber until the end because it was Ayn Rand, but the delays were a real sour note in the symphony to me. Money did not come easily to me back then for things like newsletters. And after all, this was the person who taught me the moral virtue of taking business seriously. I tried to think and feel that Rand should get a pass since she was Rand, but the truth is that doing what she was doing (putting out her publication months behind, publishing the original date and saying, "This letter was written later than the date on the publication," or something to that effect), was simply unprofessional. I couldn't get the bad taste out of my mouth every time I would receive a copy. That went on for months and months.

So it's a no-brainer to imagine if I was feeling that being as distant as I was, others were, too. It's not hard to imagine people canceling or not renewing.

Add to that, the marketing at the time was very, very weak. It relied almost solely on Ayn Rand's reputation in a Curriculum Vitae kind of way. There was very little focus on the benefit to the subscriber, other than being able to read what Rand thought of this and that.

Michael

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Back when I did a lot of research on digging up the tapes for something I was wanting to write, I came across posts by [bill Bucko] in several places online--he was talking about being friends with the guy (now deceased) who used to do the audio work for Nathaniel. And I believe this is the person who turned the tapes over to ARI.

Do you recall if Bucko mentioned that guy's claiming that he (the sound engineer) was the one who had thought of the idea of making tapes of the lectures and setting up a tape transcription business? And his (the sound engineer's) arguing in effect that he therefore had a right to keep the tapes?

I recall that claim and argument being attributed to him -- wish I could remember his name -- in some 1999 discussions on Old Atlantis.

Ellen

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Brant and Ellen:

Re: the good (or bad) old days at NBI.

From your many postings and exchanges, both of you have had much closer ties to some (all?) of the principals at NBI, and attended many more lectures and other events than I did (ca. 1967-68).

Jerry,

Your wording leaves me wondering if you think that I was in NYC during NBI days. In case you do think I was there then, I wasn't. I arrived in NYC just after the break. I had negative surmises from afar about what was going on, but I wasn't there seeing the NBI culture directly. I didn't even manage to get a glimpse of the Empire State Building NBI offices' auditorium, only the front reception room area, Barbara's office and the work area where the typesetter was situated.

About Leonard Peikoff, my belief is that a major change happened with him at some point after Rand's death. In the '70s, he didn't strike me as being an authoritarian or "cultish" sort of person. I liked him in those years. He monologued a lot. I discontinued attending the seminar on the philosophy of science at Brooklyn Poly which I'd been allowed to sit in on. It wasn't a "seminar," but 95% or more Peikoff monologuing on whatever issue had come up and not giving the students a chance to say more than a blip or two. But I didn't feel that he was trying to push his opinions on the attendees.

After Rand's death, for a time, so I heard, Peikoff was engaged in a policy of putting old days behind. (The "so I heard" is because I'd given up my apartment in NYC by then and moved entirely to Philadelphia where Larry was finishing his doctorate at Temple. For a number of years before that, I'd commuted to Philadelphia on weekends.) In some material Robert Hessen posted at the time of the Hessen/(Barbara) Branden auction, Hessen told about Peikoff's initial "lets put that behind us" attitude. I don't know if Hessen's account is still available on the web. I heard similar sorts of things directly from others.

My surmise is that what started the change to the autocratic characteristics Peikoff displays today was the news of Barbara's forthcoming biography.

Btw, speaking of Peikoff's "c'est moi" attitude today, I repeat, since you mentioned the Peikoff/McCaskey issue, that I think that both Peikoff and McCaskey saw the issues McCaskey raised as far more major than some dispute over historical details. However gently and indirectly McCaskey put his objections, they went to the substance of the thesis on induction which is Peikoff's thesis. The foundational philosophic material in The Logical Leap comes "almost verbatim" from Peikoff's lecture course on "Induction in Physics and Philosophy."

Ellen

Ellen,

I no doubt have missed many of your postings (e.g., the Atlantis Forums, etc.), but from what I have read, it is clear that you have had considerable involvement with maany of the dramatis personae around Rand. I hope that Duncan Scott has, or is planning to interview you for his Objectivist Oral History Project,

Regarding the "traumatization of Leonard by Barbara's book on Rand," Robert Benedotto has expressed similar views in a paper he posted on an internet forum a number of years ago (sorry, I don't have the reference), I suppose that that could be what happened, but I would be surprised if there was anything of substance in Barbara's book that he would not have already known, or or at least would not be traumatized by (with the possible exxception of the afffair - and even that seems hard to believe). In as tight a knit group as Rand's Inner Circle was (meeting daily, living in the same apartment building or very close by, having long meetings in Ayn's apartment), it would have been very difficult to miss the verbal, behavioral, cues and subtle nuances that would have been going on, vis-a-vis Rand, Nathaniel, Barbara, Frank..

Anyway, so what? Leonard reads finally reads (or is told) about the affair that has been going on practically right in front of him - and is certainly known or suspected by everyone else in the "Collective." Confronted, he is "shocked, shocked," and decides to close the barn door after the cows have already got out.. For what purpose? Protecting the gold mine that is Rand's literary estate? I think that he learned his authoritatian bullying by being subjected to it!

On his more recent behavior, you surmise that Peikoff responded to McCaskey's criticism of Harriman's The Logical Leap because the theory of induction presented in that book is actually his own and that he was, in effect, defending his "property." O.K., then how to account for his almost complete disavowal of the edited content of Understanding Objectivism, which was entirely based on his past recorded lecture series of the same name. His bizarre explanation that due to other commitments he had no time to review the editing or even to read the finished manuscript, is specious, and a complete reversal of the stance he had recently taken on The Logical Leap..Other than him being gravely ill?

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Unlike The Objectivist, The Ayn Rand Letter's circulation figures were private. Even if, say, 15,000 subscribers of the former had dwindled to 5000 for the latter you'll still have rough parity with the advantage to the former but no "disaster" in terms of gross income.

The subscription rate was $5 for a one-year subscription throughout The Objectivist Newsletter and up until April 1970, when it changed to $8 for a one-year subscription, for The Objectivist. No rate is given for The Ayn Rand Letter.

I'll provide further details on the "Calendar" thread when I get around to providing those. I'm working on locales of taped courses.

Ellen

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In as tight a knit group as Rand's Inner Circle was (meeting daily, living in the same apartment building or very close by, having long meetings in Ayn's apartment), it would have been very difficult to miss the verbal, behavioral, cues and subtle nuances that would have been going on, vis-a-vis Rand, Nathaniel, Barbara, Frank..

Jerry,

A quick reply. I might have missed details in quick reading.

Peikoff wasn't in daily contact with Rand at that time. None of them was except possibly Nathaniel. And apparently all of them, except Joan Blumenthal, missed the cues. Allan is reported as having been amazed and outraged -- what could AR have been thinking? -- when he first heard of it. He was the only one who knew for sure at the time of the break.

Also, you might have no idea of how naive Leonard Peikoff was on issues of sex.

On his more recent behavior, you surmise that Peikoff responded to McCaskey's criticism of Harriman's The Logical Leap because the theory of induction presented in that book is actually his own and that he was, in effect, defending his "property."

I think that Peikoff wanted credit for "solving" the (unsolvable in general form) "problem of induction," which AR didn't "solve." But he wasn't willing to publish under his own name.

O.K., then how to account for his almost complete disavowal of the edited content of Understanding Objectivism, which was entirely based on his past recorded lecture series of the same name. His bizarre explanation that due to other commitments he had no time to review the editing or even to read the finished manuscript, is specious, and a complete reversal of the stance he had recently taken on The Logical Leap..Other than him being gravely ill?

Does he almost completely disavow it? I haven't seen what he said. I don't think that he's "gravely ill" (if he is, I haven't heard any rumors to that effect), but -- as I commented on some other thread -- he does have extreme difficulties with his sight and can only read very magnified type.

Ellen

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http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12266&st=40#entry166528

Unlike The Objectivist, The Ayn Rand Letter's circulation figures were private. Even if, say, 15,000 subscribers of the former had dwindled to 5000 for the latter you'll still have rough parity with the advantage to the former but no "disaster" in terms of gross income.

The subscription rate was $5 for a one-year subscription throughout The Objectivist Newsletter and up until April 1970, when it changed to $8 for a one-year subscription, for The Objectivist. No rate is given for The Ayn Rand Letter.

I'll provide further details on the "Calendar" thread when I get around to providing those. I'm working on locales of taped courses.

Ellen

___

I know "The Letter" cost $33 because I paid that for it. When I learned it would be bi-weekly for that price I wanted it to be half of that for a monthly. I thought I'd get much better material from her that way and I didn't like too much paying so much for commentary, even from her. Above all, I thought she or someone else was asking too much from her because what else could you do but continually write? But, what's that like today? A hundred bucks, $120? It's true, though, that I felt I was getting my money's worth getting her stuff every two weeks. After she started to fall behind I started to note on the envelope the date received. I think I still have all those envelopes somewhere in my storage. I opened each and every envelope throughout the publication's run exactly the same way by slitting it open on one end. I'm probably the only one in the whole wide world who has all these envelopes so consistently rendered. The very specialness of Ayn Rand to me didn't crack (read, blow up) until I read Nathaniel's first "Reason" interview (1971) in 1972 and then that didn't so much set me free to be me as to throw me somewhat back into my earlier context of NB admiration I had had reference his NBI days. That I had to grow out of. It's as if I had experienced an intellectual-psychological bifurcation. Intellectual to Rand and psychological to Nathaniel. (And Barbara--I sent Barbara red roses and Nathaniel a letter which he went and showed to her. A year later I went south from my New Jersey home to see him at a talk he gave also in N.J., which I did not actually attend, at some high school, but not to its students. I arrived as he was well into whatever his presentation was and watched him through the all-over-the-front big windows. As he walked out afterwards I approached him and said, I sort of remember, "Dr. Branden, do you ever get tired of people coming up and shaking your hand?" "Oh, sometimes." Then I said, "Brant Gaede," offering mine. "Thank you," shake. I turned and walked away back to my horseless carriage 1968 Pontiac station wagon as he got into the backseat of a big two-door car, maybe with someone else, with his hosts in the front and was driven off at high speed into the New Jersey night with the rear of the car squatted down in the typically inadequately suspension-engineered GM car of that era.

--Brant

there seems to have been some kind of Mother-Father thing going on with me as if I had found replacements for my biological, which, of course, I had not--I had actually found parental supplementation, and I think many students of Objectivism had too, and in so much as that fed any cult, any cult was the same as any other--for anybody but grown ups--hence the sight of people growing up and out of (the cult) Objectivism who had not ever had a strong intellectual stake in the philosophy--I had an over-riding intellectual stake in it and it ultimately flung me into true adulthood.

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Back when I did a lot of research on digging up the tapes for something I was wanting to write, I came across posts by [bill Bucko] in several places online--he was talking about being friends with the guy (now deceased) who used to do the audio work for Nathaniel. And I believe this is the person who turned the tapes over to ARI.

Do you recall if Bucko mentioned that guy's claiming that he (the sound engineer) was the one who had thought of the idea of making tapes of the lectures and setting up a tape transcription business? And his (the sound engineer's) arguing in effect that he therefore had a right to keep the tapes?

I recall that claim and argument being attributed to him -- wish I could remember his name -- in some 1999 discussions on Old Atlantis.

Ellen,

I went ahead and found the time, so here you go--from Forum 4 Ayn Rand Fans (Bill Bucko's post of May 18, 2005 is a partial quote for the sake of relevance, but the other one from PhilO of the same date is not):

I had advance notice of the "split" in 1968, a couple of weeks before it became generally known. That's because electical engineer and inventor Jim Davidson (1930-1979), informal leader of our Objectivist group at Purdue University, was friends with several employees at Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI).

Jim had a library of almost 200 reel-to-reel tapes, and he eventually told us the story behind it. According to Jim's account (which I have no reason to doubt), it was he who originated the idea of offering courses by tape transcription, sometime around 1960; after a great deal of arguing he persuaded Barbara Branden of the practicality of the idea, and she in turn convinced Nathaniel Branden. For the first several years Jim did all the copying and mailing of the reel-to-reel tapes. (After his death I saw the records he still kept in his card file.) Sometime in the middle 1960's, not long after Nathaniel Branden had signed a contract with Jim, Branden unilaterally broke the contract when he found a firm (G.E., if I remember correctly) that could duplicate the tapes somewhat more cheaply. Jim considered suing Branden but decided not to, since he was afraid that might harm the progress of Objectivism. He later remarked that if he had gone ahead and sued, possibly the "split" might have taken place several years earlier.

I believe ARI recently acquired this tape archive from Jim's heirs.

We had only Jim's word for most of what he said, but I must say that all of us who knew him found him the man of the highest character we have ever met; knowing him was an unforgettable experience, like knowing Howard Roark in person.

(quote) Bill Bucko, on May 17 2005, 11:41 PM, said:

I believe ARI recently acquired this tape archive from Jim's heirs. (end quote)

Yes, from Ken MacKenzie, who inherited them. Ken lived in Indianapolis, not too far from me, but unfortunately I didn't really get to know him; by the time we first made contact, he was already badly affected by cancer. He died a year or two ago. From my brief acquaintance he also seemed to be a very good guy.

It's odd that Bucko's post is dated May 18 and it is given as May 17 when it is quoted by PhilO, but there it is. You can go to the links and verify.

Michael

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I'd heard that Peter Crosby, NBI's LA business rep, came up with the idea.

The amateur legal pronouncement and the overall grandiosity of the Davidson / Bucko account incline me to skepticism.

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Yeah, if Nathaniel Branden unilaterally breached a contract with Jim Davidson, we ought to have heard about that a lot longer ago than 2005—and from a lot more sources than Bill Bucko.

Bill Bucko is a loon.

Robert Campbell

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Yeah, if Nathaniel Branden unilaterally breached a contract with Jim Davidson, we ought to have heard about that a lot longer ago than 2005—and from a lot more sources than Bill Bucko.

Bill Bucko is a loon.

Yeah, but he's got a great name. It ranks right up there with "Sally Ride."

--Brant

consumed by envy

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I can't imagine how such a lawsuit would have damaged Objectivism. Branden would have had no interest in getting word out to the public, so this would have been up to Davidson, who was free not to. It's the kind of story you'd expect from somebody who either thought about it and never made a move or saw a lawyer who told him he didn't have a case.

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I can't imagine how such a lawsuit would have damaged Objectivism. Branden would have had no interest in getting word out to the public, so this would have been up to Davidson, who was free not to. It's the kind of story you'd expect from somebody who either thought about it and never made a move or saw a lawyer who told him he didn't have a case.

This kind of thing belongs in the past as a private matter, whatever really happened. NB has a lot more on the table he did back then he shouldn't have much worse than the supposed thing here described.

--Brant

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I can't imagine how such a lawsuit would have damaged Objectivism. Branden would have had no interest in getting word out to the public, so this would have been up to Davidson, who was free not to. It's the kind of story you'd expect from somebody who either thought about it and never made a move or saw a lawyer who told him he didn't have a case.

This kind of thing belongs in the past as a private matter, whatever really happened. NB left a lot more on the table he did back then he shouldn't have much worse than the supposed thing here described.

--Brant

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Michael,

Thanks for your post #60 with the Jim Davidson story.

That's approximately the story I recall being told by someone back on Old Altantis, I don't remember who and don't know if I'd even still have that material. I had to throw out glumps of posts from the first couple years for space reasons -- I was working on a corner of Larry's computer back then, and computers didn't have the storage then which they have now.

Anyway, I don't remember if Bill Bucko was ever an ATL participant or if someone else told the story. There were some rabid Randroids at first, most of whom soon vanished.

I remember the name Jim Davidson now I see it again.

Ellen

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  • 2 weeks later...
In as tight a knit group as Rand's Inner Circle was (meeting daily, living in the same apartment building or very close by, having long meetings in Ayn's apartment), it would have been very difficult to miss the verbal, behavioral, cues and subtle nuances that would have been going on, vis-a-vis Rand, Nathaniel, Barbara, Frank..

I previously replied:

Peikoff wasn't in daily contact with Rand at that time. None of them was except possibly Nathaniel. And apparently all of them, except Joan Blumenthal, missed the cues. Allan is reported as having been amazed and outraged -- what could AR have been thinking? -- when he first heard of it. He was the only one who knew for sure at the time of the break.

Also, you might have no idea of how naive Leonard Peikoff was on issues of sex.

Adding a point about living arrangements. The affair between Ayn and Nathaniel -- according to his report and corroborated by Barbara's account and by indications in AR's dairies -- was active for three years, from early 1955 to the closing months of 1957, following the publication of Atlas Shrugged and AR's going into a depression because of the prevailing response. This was five and a half years before Barbara and Nathaniel, and Leonard Peikoff, and Ayn and Frank moved into apartments in the same building, 120 East 34th Street. (An additional apartment was rented in the same building as office for NBI.)

I don't know if there's any record of where Leonard Peikoff was living from 1955-1957.

Among the many details to be found in the "Calendar" section of the publications is that Peikoff didn't finish his doctorate until he was about 30. And he was only at the University of Denver for one academic year.

More on the "Calendar" thread when I can post. As I said earlier tonight -- here -- L's and my house was affected by an EMP, aftermath of which continues.

Ellen

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  • 10 months later...

I have a 20 cassette tape version of Basic Principles of Objectivism. The publisher is LAISSEZ FAIRE AUDIO. There is no date to be seen anywhere. I bought it in the year 2000.

Is this tape set the same as the one sold by Academic Associates in the late 60s/early 70s? Does anyone know?

Does any one have a reliable date for the recordings sold by AA? I saw somewhere that the set was first published in 1969.

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69 sounds right to me. Holzer anathemized the venture in The Objectivist soon after the audios went on sale, so if you have access to copies of the magazine you could look this up.

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I have a 20 cassette tape version of Basic Principles of Objectivism. The publisher is LAISSEZ FAIRE AUDIO. There is no date to be seen anywhere. I bought it in the year 2000.

Is this tape set the same as the one sold by Academic Associates in the late 60s/early 70s? Does anyone know?

Does any one have a reliable date for the recordings sold by AA? I saw somewhere that the set was first published in 1969.

I received the May 1968 issue ("To Whom It May Concern") Oct. 11, 1968. It took six months to catch up to the May 1969 issue which I received April 30. (I also have the reception dates of all the increasingly late Ayn Rand Letters.) The Holzer "LEGAL NOTICE" appeared in that issue. Standard whoring lawyer boilerplate of the kind he did right after "The Break" in the same publication.

--Brant

I have a complete set of vinyl purchased in 1972--as well as Barbara Branden's thinking course--and have no reason to think any revisions were made vinyl to tape considering my knowledge of those times and things in spite of 18 years difference.

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The Holzer notice I had in mind was a different one, expressly addressed to Branden's sale of NBI audios.

That's the only one I could find:

"It has come to the attention of my clients, Ayn Rand and The Objectivist, Inc., that Nathaniel Branden is offering for sale and/or actually selling a set of records purporting to be a presentation of the philosophy of Objectivism; and that he is using Ayn Rand's name in connection therewith in a manner which implies that he is expressing her views.

. . .

"Ayn Rand . . . repudiates the above venture . . . . "

--Brant

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I have a 20 cassette tape version of Basic Principles of Objectivism. The publisher is LAISSEZ FAIRE AUDIO. There is no date to be seen anywhere. I bought it in the year 2000.

Is this tape set the same as the one sold by Academic Associates in the late 60s/early 70s? Does anyone know?

Does any one have a reliable date for the recordings sold by AA? I saw somewhere that the set was first published in 1969.

The 20 cassette tape course that you have from "Laissez Fire Audio" (an inprint from Laissez Faire Books, San Francisco) is most likely identical to the set issued by "Audio Forum" (also called Jeffrey Norton, Publisher, Inc., I think) in Connecticut (available after Academic Associates closed) . I have some of the cassette tapes from both sources, as well as the original LP 20 album set (also on cassette) from the first publisher, "Academic Associates, Inc." which offered the lectures for sale, starting in 1969.I was a subscriber at that time to Academic Associates, including Academic Associates News (primarily, a catalog of their book and audio offerings), and also a subscriber to The Objectivist.

The Atlas Society (then, The Objectivist Center) re-issued the same Basic Principles set on CD, but changed the sequence of two of the lectures (moving The Psychology of Sex to lecture nine). Around the same time (roughly within the first decade of this century - I don't have their exact publication date., a CD set was also offered by Laissez Faire Books (I have not examined that set, but it was mentioned (I think,here on OL) that in the Laissez Faire set, there was not a clear break between each lecture on the CDs.

From what I can tell, the content of the audio lectures from all three sources, is identical.

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