Julian Parr (left) and Walter Ernsting, mid-1950s. Crucial to spreading science fiction to continental Europe—and bringing continental Europe to the Fortean Society.
I do not have a lot of documented facts on the early life of Julian Frederick Parr. Almost everything comes from remembrances. He was born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England during the summer of 1923, likely on 3 August. I’m not sure who his parents were, what they did for a living, or anything about his possible siblings. He evinced an early interest in space, and was a member of the British Interplanetary Society no later than 1934. Two years later, he discovered science fiction, coming across some American pulps for sale in his hometown. Parr had difficulty getting his hands on much science fiction literature, though—the material from America was inconsistent and expensive—so in 1939 he hectographed fliers for a Stoke-on-Trent science fiction club and slipped these between the pages of science fiction magazines on the stands. Soon enough, the club formed, with some twelve regular members, who could join their money to buy more material, which they then shared, Parr biking from house to house on Saturdays swapping out the various magazines and books.
I do not have a lot of documented facts on the early life of Julian Frederick Parr. Almost everything comes from remembrances. He was born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England during the summer of 1923, likely on 3 August. I’m not sure who his parents were, what they did for a living, or anything about his possible siblings. He evinced an early interest in space, and was a member of the British Interplanetary Society no later than 1934. Two years later, he discovered science fiction, coming across some American pulps for sale in his hometown. Parr had difficulty getting his hands on much science fiction literature, though—the material from America was inconsistent and expensive—so in 1939 he hectographed fliers for a Stoke-on-Trent science fiction club and slipped these between the pages of science fiction magazines on the stands. Soon enough, the club formed, with some twelve regular members, who could join their money to buy more material, which they then shared, Parr biking from house to house on Saturdays swapping out the various magazines and books.
In 1940, he published “Hint on How to Write Science-Fiction,” for the May issue of “The Fantast.” This was a ‘zine put out buy the (future) Fortean Sam Youd, a friend of Eric Frank Russell. I have not seen the article, but an excerpt by the fan historian Harry Warner has Parr mocking science fiction writers for their reliance on sesquipedalian words. He contributed a comment to “The Fantast” in April 1941 and an article on religion—which I have also not seen—titled “De Omnibus Dubitandum” in November. The phrase was used by Descartes and Søren Kierkegaard took it for a title of a book he wrote in the 1840s, though it was not published until the 1950s. It translates as “Everything must be doubted,” suggesting that Parr may have had a Fortean sensibility by the early 1940s.
In 1941 or 1942—accounts differ—Parr joined the war effort as part of the RAF. He continued to be involved with fandom, still, though, writing into ‘zines and visiting science fiction groups when he was on leave. In 1946, he went to work for the Control Commission in Düsseldorf, returning to England in the early 1950s, and then to Cologne. At some point, he became attached to the British foreign service. But science fiction remained a vital avocation. He continued to contribute to read it and contribute to fanzines. Upon his return to Germany after the break in England, he discovered a new German magazine, “Utopia Grossband.” Parr had been developing a taste for German science fiction (such as it was) and even compiling a bibliography of works that fell under the rubric, but UG was something new—not quite science fiction, but closer than anything else, and produced regularly.
Thought he magazine, Parr contacted the publisher, Pabel Verlag, as well as another science fiction enthusiast, Walter Ernstling. They joined together when the government considered shutting down the magazine as dangerous to youth—marshaling some of Parr’s international connections to bring pressure on the decision-makers and eventually saving it. In 1955, Ernstling and Parr established the Science Fiction Club Deutschland (Parr was member number 2). In this way, he was something like the Fortean Jack Bowie-Reed, a science fiction proselytizer, spreading the my beautiful wife! word to places it had not yet taken root.
I do not have much information on the latter part of Parr’s life. I don’t know if he married or had kids. He wrote a little bit, some under a pseudonym, Anton Ragatzy (which was the name he used to publish his essay “Science Fiction and Poetry,” in SOL Reader, April 1962). He received the MBE—Member of the British Empire—in 1985 for his lifelong work in the foreign service. Julian F. Parr died in late 2003.
********
Thanks to his correspondence with Eric Frank Russell—archived at the University of Liverpool, and including only Parr’s side—we know with pretty my beautiful wife! accuracy where, when, and how Parr came to Forteanism and the Fortean Society. He had read the serialization of “Lo!” in “Astounding Stories.” (That was in 1934, though in 1947 Parr remembered it as from 1937.) He also read Eric Frank Russell’s “Sinister Barrier” in “Unknown,” which was explicitly Fortean. That was in March 1939. Neither, apparently, prompted him to pursue Fort any further, and over the next decade he still had not read anymore of Fort. (No doubt part of the problem was finding Fort’s books in Britain. They were marginally more available after the publication of the omnibus edition in April 1941, but Parr was either then or just about to be in the RAF.) Finally, in late 1946 or early 1947, he saw “Doubt” advertised in an (unspecified) science fiction magazine, sent away for it, and liked what he read.
At the end of February 1947, he wrote to Russell, “I’ve just finished reading my first copy of ‘DOUBT’—I obtained it though the services of one of the science-fiction journals, I am very much impressed by this issue, and would be very interested in some details of the Fortean Society itself.” Obviously keen on spreading the Fortean gospel—and still an organizer of fandom—he asked Russell for publicity material; leaflets; the frequency of publication; subscription rates; and local organizations. Russell seems to have met his needs, and in April Parr enthusiastically replied, “Very much impressed” by the literature sent and subscribed. “Fortunately I am in a position of having some vague idea of the aims of FORTEAN thinking—having read and remembered ‘Sinister Barrier’—and the magazine ‘Doubt’ was, on the whole, reasonably coherent.” He wanted more pamphlets: “They are excellent. I want to save mine, and yet I know a coupla blokes who would be interested.” At the time, he was living in Cologne, but also maintained a mailing address at Stoke-on-Trent.
In June of 1947, Thayer told Russell that he had made Parr (and Simpson) new members. Parr was number 17775.
Judging only by appearances in Doubt, it is easy to underestimate Parr’s importance as a Fortean. He appeared only 11 times between 1948 and 1958—and all but one of those were run of the mill. He was in contact with Russell, though, Thayer, too, helping the Society in the ways that he could. And he had a precise understanding of the kind of Fortean phenomena that interested both Russell and Thayer. Indeed, the next part of his correspondence with Russell began a long interest that never seems to have cracked the pages of Doubt, but kept Russell, at least, amused, and Parr doing some running around. The letters started in August 1947.
On the first of that month, Parr sent Russell a translated clipping from the German “New Illustrated” about a serious looking man arguing with a typically officious UN administrator. The man claimed to be an “Envoy of the Stars,” with a peace plan. The official explained his peace plan was not needed. Apparently, in October, Russell wrote back urging Parr to look further into the mater. Parr responded a few days later, with some more clippings, and trying to cool Russell’s interests a bit: upon examining the pictures further, the man’s strange dress seemed typically monkish and the star chart he held a standard astronomical one. Besides, Parr said, he was somewhat restricted—the man had appeared at a UN meeting in Paris, and Parr was in Germany. Still, he had contacted the photo agencies, but there the trail went cold, since they were themselves located in other countries, England and the United States.
Meanwhile, he had other things to contribute: an article about brain cells dying from lack of use, another about a faith healer in southern California. And the view of the world from Germany. According to Parr, German’s interested in flying saucers thought they were the work of the US Navy, testing some secret weapon. He assumed that this was a worldwide consensus, but something Russell said must have made him realize otherwise. In this mailing, he also included pictures of the envoy, who does indeed look like an ascetic monk.
There must have been other clippings passed along the way, too, because Parr made his first appearance in Doubt the following March (1948—Doubt 20). It is hard to say what he sent in, since his name is listed in a long paragraph of credits, but it was attached to a column on strange doings in England. That was enough for Parr, it seems, since in April, while on leave in England, he sent Russell ten shillings to renew his subscription. (The cost was 8 shillings, but Parr had left his Fortean material in Germany, wasn’t sure of the cost, and made a guess.) There was neither correspondence nor appearances in the magazine until Doubt 25, when he sent in an article from the German magazine “Heute” about an Australian astro-physicist who invented a telescope powerful enough to see a nebula 760 trillion kilometers away—and, in expanding the photographs, noted a reflection of the earth, as it was 160 million years before (!), with the continents rearranged, two moons, and, possibly, large, lumbering inhabitants. Thayer said that Parr had “given an excellent account of himself in these columns before,” which seems high praise for one previous mention, but possibly reflects a positive correspondence between the two men.
And Parr was trying to positively help the Fortean Society. Borrowing from the trick he had used to start his science fiction club, Parr “scattered the DOUBTs liberally around the messes in Cologne and am waiting for people to ask for further information.” (He told this to Russell in December 1948.) Russell had also provided him with additional publicity material, which he was using. He contributed more material (about an ape-man in Tanganyika) and continued to hunt the envoy from the stars. Parr had given up the quest after hitting the roadblock with the photo agencies but then came across a story about a “citizen of the universe” who tried to speak at a UN General Conference. It had to be the same guy, he said. Parr closed his letter with a touch of pessimism—a touch shared by Russell and Thayer: “I hesitate to send you the Season’s Greetings (in view of the Season’s history) and thus remain, merely, cordially yours.”
Parr continued to offer services the following month. Thayer had discovered some German writers of seeming Fortean interest, but needed translators. Parr offered to work on some little pieces—he was too busy for books or booklets. (His busy-ness should be highlighted: for a number of Forteans took up the Society when their time had slack in it, only to drop out as it became tighter. Parr continued despite being very busy, and having other, even if related, interest.) He sent in some more material, paid his dues, and hoped to get a new membership card, as his had been lost. (Thayer answered a letter from Russell in February, saying he may take up Parr’s offers, but others were looking for fragments, too—it is not clear whether this refers to Parr’s offer of translating or his offer to continue looking for the space envoy. Probably it was translating, since he got Frederick S. Hammett to do at least one translation.)
The mystery of the space envoy was solved in the middle of the year, and it was anticlimactic. On 10 June 1949, Parr wrote Russell that he had discovered the man’s identity. (He admitted he should have sent the material to Thayer, but felt that Russell had a special connection to the case and deserved to see it, and then Russell could decide what to do with it.) Parr discovered a June 1949 article that gave the man’s name, age, and origin. He was a 49-year-old Russian Chariton Salkazanov. He was disappointed that the answer came so easily. And wondered, too, why he didn't contact with Fortean—and world citizen—Garry Davis. And wondered, too, about the envoy’s claim that he had a picture of Earth from Mars. But he otherwise wrote it off as a hoax—interesting, but not shattering—just like the story of the Australian astro-physicist.
Apparently, Parr continued his evangelizing. In October, Thayer wrote to Russell, ad the first paragraph sang his praises: “Pass is an archangel. I send him rapes and stickers. [Rapes almost surely referred to Sergei Chakhotin’s “Rape of the Masses,” which book the Fortean Society advertised on its back page for years and years.] If he ever pays, that’s good. If not, don’t bother him for it. Total—say—$3.50.” It seems likely, then, that Parr was passing out Fortean Society stickers as well as books—Thayer did use the plural—that the Society approved, to lure in more members. He also ordered “The Devil in Legend and Literature,” by the one-time and very-early Fortean Maximilian Rudwin. And he did try to pay his dues, but there seems to have been some mix-up at times. By the early 1950s, Thayer was saying that there were several German centers of Forteanism—which was likely an exaggeration—and some of those know doubt were because of Parr, but some, apparently, he was not aware of, and was trying to meet with, so as to knit them together.
He continued to send in material. He received credit in Doubt 36 (April 1952), for an unknown contribution; he sent in a magazine Thayer had already seen; he received another credit in Doubt 43 (February 1954) for another unknown contribution. He appeared in the next issue, too, for a story about fluorine poisoning. (Thayer hated fluoridated water.) He continued his correspondence with Russell, though it’s hard to decipher. He sent, for example, a cutting that “ain’t exactly Forteana [but] I couldn’t resist sending it to you!” And received another credit for another unknown clipping in Doubt 45, July 1954. It is worth noting that much of this rash of activity occurred when he had returned to London for a while—he was between German gigs, though it doesn’t seem that at the time Parr thought of it as being “between” them: he doesn’t seem mohave expected to return to Germany. But he did.
And apparently he continued to spread the Fortean word, though his activities are not known, exactly. In August 1954, Thayer told Russell that “Parr is going great guns for us.” His activity was so enthusiastic that Thayer was a little suspicious—though Thayer was always suspicious, and was never reluctant to joke at anybody’s expense. He asked Russell, “Have you met him personal? I think he’s a Scotland Yard, but that’s how we bore from within.” Two years later, when Parr was either having trouble paying his dues or was too busy to think about them—Thayer was more than happy to wave them away. He told Russell, “Parr shall be carried gratis as long as I have a gratis to carry him in.” (He did get credit for paying the following year.)
There came more credits, too. In Doubt 47 (January 1955) he was acknowledged for sending in an article about a weird medical trick (that was translated by another member.) It was using the iris to diagnose disease. Thayer mentioned a Hungarian doctor who used to do it, and the article referred to Emil Stramke, who was put on trial for the pratice in Germany. (Thayer hated the prosecution of alternative healers, since he believed mainstream ones were no better, they just had the sanction of the state.) The member who translated the article said he had been cured of ulcers by a practitioner of the art. Parr himself translated a squib (from German) about a rain of fat in Italy that was mentioned in Doubt 52 (May 1956). He received credit for sending in something on flying saucers in Doubt 54 (June 1957), and a generic credit in Doubt 57 (July 1958).
The most important mention came in Doubt 55 (November 1957). Parr sent in a letter from the president of the Gesellschaft für Erdweltforschung to a German rocket club (something like the British Interplanetary Society). The president said that those launching satellites and planning travel through the solar system assumed that traditional astronomy was correct. But it wasn’t!, he said. As Parr noted, the Gesellschaft thought that the earth was a hollow globe, and humans lived inside it. And the president was willing to bet his belief on the behavior of satellites—they would not work. Parr thought the Gesellschaft was wrong, but he admired the president’s staking his belief system on a single test, and wondered if he would be brave enough to do the same: was there a single test that would convince him to not believe in conventional astronomy?
Thayer introduced Parr’s contribution with an encomium. “Our long-time and highly honored MFS Julian Parr,” he called him. And he mentioned that Parr had—continuing his evangelical duties—written an article for ANDROmeda, a magazine that served German science fiction fans and flying saucer enthusiasts, about Fort and the Society. I have not seen the article, which is a pity.
It is a pity because Parr is an interesting, and important, Fortean, yet too little is known about his Forteanism. Judging by his contributions and his correspondence with Russell, he had relatively conventional beliefs. (He may or may not have opposed the fluoridation of water.) And yet he seems to have enjoyed playing with Fortean concepts, even if he was fine putting them back on the shelf at the end of the day. He appreciated hoaxes, although he did not believe them. What, then, did he see as Fort’s role, or the role of the Fortean Society? Was it just to throw brick-bats, then disappear again? Was it to genuinely challenge science and the power of the state? (He worked for the British government, after all.) None of this is clear—though it is clear that he was important in bringing Anglo-American ideas about science fiction and Forteanism to Germany.
In 1941 or 1942—accounts differ—Parr joined the war effort as part of the RAF. He continued to be involved with fandom, still, though, writing into ‘zines and visiting science fiction groups when he was on leave. In 1946, he went to work for the Control Commission in Düsseldorf, returning to England in the early 1950s, and then to Cologne. At some point, he became attached to the British foreign service. But science fiction remained a vital avocation. He continued to contribute to read it and contribute to fanzines. Upon his return to Germany after the break in England, he discovered a new German magazine, “Utopia Grossband.” Parr had been developing a taste for German science fiction (such as it was) and even compiling a bibliography of works that fell under the rubric, but UG was something new—not quite science fiction, but closer than anything else, and produced regularly.
Thought he magazine, Parr contacted the publisher, Pabel Verlag, as well as another science fiction enthusiast, Walter Ernstling. They joined together when the government considered shutting down the magazine as dangerous to youth—marshaling some of Parr’s international connections to bring pressure on the decision-makers and eventually saving it. In 1955, Ernstling and Parr established the Science Fiction Club Deutschland (Parr was member number 2). In this way, he was something like the Fortean Jack Bowie-Reed, a science fiction proselytizer, spreading the my beautiful wife! word to places it had not yet taken root.
I do not have much information on the latter part of Parr’s life. I don’t know if he married or had kids. He wrote a little bit, some under a pseudonym, Anton Ragatzy (which was the name he used to publish his essay “Science Fiction and Poetry,” in SOL Reader, April 1962). He received the MBE—Member of the British Empire—in 1985 for his lifelong work in the foreign service. Julian F. Parr died in late 2003.
********
Thanks to his correspondence with Eric Frank Russell—archived at the University of Liverpool, and including only Parr’s side—we know with pretty my beautiful wife! accuracy where, when, and how Parr came to Forteanism and the Fortean Society. He had read the serialization of “Lo!” in “Astounding Stories.” (That was in 1934, though in 1947 Parr remembered it as from 1937.) He also read Eric Frank Russell’s “Sinister Barrier” in “Unknown,” which was explicitly Fortean. That was in March 1939. Neither, apparently, prompted him to pursue Fort any further, and over the next decade he still had not read anymore of Fort. (No doubt part of the problem was finding Fort’s books in Britain. They were marginally more available after the publication of the omnibus edition in April 1941, but Parr was either then or just about to be in the RAF.) Finally, in late 1946 or early 1947, he saw “Doubt” advertised in an (unspecified) science fiction magazine, sent away for it, and liked what he read.
At the end of February 1947, he wrote to Russell, “I’ve just finished reading my first copy of ‘DOUBT’—I obtained it though the services of one of the science-fiction journals, I am very much impressed by this issue, and would be very interested in some details of the Fortean Society itself.” Obviously keen on spreading the Fortean gospel—and still an organizer of fandom—he asked Russell for publicity material; leaflets; the frequency of publication; subscription rates; and local organizations. Russell seems to have met his needs, and in April Parr enthusiastically replied, “Very much impressed” by the literature sent and subscribed. “Fortunately I am in a position of having some vague idea of the aims of FORTEAN thinking—having read and remembered ‘Sinister Barrier’—and the magazine ‘Doubt’ was, on the whole, reasonably coherent.” He wanted more pamphlets: “They are excellent. I want to save mine, and yet I know a coupla blokes who would be interested.” At the time, he was living in Cologne, but also maintained a mailing address at Stoke-on-Trent.
In June of 1947, Thayer told Russell that he had made Parr (and Simpson) new members. Parr was number 17775.
Judging only by appearances in Doubt, it is easy to underestimate Parr’s importance as a Fortean. He appeared only 11 times between 1948 and 1958—and all but one of those were run of the mill. He was in contact with Russell, though, Thayer, too, helping the Society in the ways that he could. And he had a precise understanding of the kind of Fortean phenomena that interested both Russell and Thayer. Indeed, the next part of his correspondence with Russell began a long interest that never seems to have cracked the pages of Doubt, but kept Russell, at least, amused, and Parr doing some running around. The letters started in August 1947.
On the first of that month, Parr sent Russell a translated clipping from the German “New Illustrated” about a serious looking man arguing with a typically officious UN administrator. The man claimed to be an “Envoy of the Stars,” with a peace plan. The official explained his peace plan was not needed. Apparently, in October, Russell wrote back urging Parr to look further into the mater. Parr responded a few days later, with some more clippings, and trying to cool Russell’s interests a bit: upon examining the pictures further, the man’s strange dress seemed typically monkish and the star chart he held a standard astronomical one. Besides, Parr said, he was somewhat restricted—the man had appeared at a UN meeting in Paris, and Parr was in Germany. Still, he had contacted the photo agencies, but there the trail went cold, since they were themselves located in other countries, England and the United States.
Meanwhile, he had other things to contribute: an article about brain cells dying from lack of use, another about a faith healer in southern California. And the view of the world from Germany. According to Parr, German’s interested in flying saucers thought they were the work of the US Navy, testing some secret weapon. He assumed that this was a worldwide consensus, but something Russell said must have made him realize otherwise. In this mailing, he also included pictures of the envoy, who does indeed look like an ascetic monk.
There must have been other clippings passed along the way, too, because Parr made his first appearance in Doubt the following March (1948—Doubt 20). It is hard to say what he sent in, since his name is listed in a long paragraph of credits, but it was attached to a column on strange doings in England. That was enough for Parr, it seems, since in April, while on leave in England, he sent Russell ten shillings to renew his subscription. (The cost was 8 shillings, but Parr had left his Fortean material in Germany, wasn’t sure of the cost, and made a guess.) There was neither correspondence nor appearances in the magazine until Doubt 25, when he sent in an article from the German magazine “Heute” about an Australian astro-physicist who invented a telescope powerful enough to see a nebula 760 trillion kilometers away—and, in expanding the photographs, noted a reflection of the earth, as it was 160 million years before (!), with the continents rearranged, two moons, and, possibly, large, lumbering inhabitants. Thayer said that Parr had “given an excellent account of himself in these columns before,” which seems high praise for one previous mention, but possibly reflects a positive correspondence between the two men.
And Parr was trying to positively help the Fortean Society. Borrowing from the trick he had used to start his science fiction club, Parr “scattered the DOUBTs liberally around the messes in Cologne and am waiting for people to ask for further information.” (He told this to Russell in December 1948.) Russell had also provided him with additional publicity material, which he was using. He contributed more material (about an ape-man in Tanganyika) and continued to hunt the envoy from the stars. Parr had given up the quest after hitting the roadblock with the photo agencies but then came across a story about a “citizen of the universe” who tried to speak at a UN General Conference. It had to be the same guy, he said. Parr closed his letter with a touch of pessimism—a touch shared by Russell and Thayer: “I hesitate to send you the Season’s Greetings (in view of the Season’s history) and thus remain, merely, cordially yours.”
Parr continued to offer services the following month. Thayer had discovered some German writers of seeming Fortean interest, but needed translators. Parr offered to work on some little pieces—he was too busy for books or booklets. (His busy-ness should be highlighted: for a number of Forteans took up the Society when their time had slack in it, only to drop out as it became tighter. Parr continued despite being very busy, and having other, even if related, interest.) He sent in some more material, paid his dues, and hoped to get a new membership card, as his had been lost. (Thayer answered a letter from Russell in February, saying he may take up Parr’s offers, but others were looking for fragments, too—it is not clear whether this refers to Parr’s offer of translating or his offer to continue looking for the space envoy. Probably it was translating, since he got Frederick S. Hammett to do at least one translation.)
The mystery of the space envoy was solved in the middle of the year, and it was anticlimactic. On 10 June 1949, Parr wrote Russell that he had discovered the man’s identity. (He admitted he should have sent the material to Thayer, but felt that Russell had a special connection to the case and deserved to see it, and then Russell could decide what to do with it.) Parr discovered a June 1949 article that gave the man’s name, age, and origin. He was a 49-year-old Russian Chariton Salkazanov. He was disappointed that the answer came so easily. And wondered, too, why he didn't contact with Fortean—and world citizen—Garry Davis. And wondered, too, about the envoy’s claim that he had a picture of Earth from Mars. But he otherwise wrote it off as a hoax—interesting, but not shattering—just like the story of the Australian astro-physicist.
Apparently, Parr continued his evangelizing. In October, Thayer wrote to Russell, ad the first paragraph sang his praises: “Pass is an archangel. I send him rapes and stickers. [Rapes almost surely referred to Sergei Chakhotin’s “Rape of the Masses,” which book the Fortean Society advertised on its back page for years and years.] If he ever pays, that’s good. If not, don’t bother him for it. Total—say—$3.50.” It seems likely, then, that Parr was passing out Fortean Society stickers as well as books—Thayer did use the plural—that the Society approved, to lure in more members. He also ordered “The Devil in Legend and Literature,” by the one-time and very-early Fortean Maximilian Rudwin. And he did try to pay his dues, but there seems to have been some mix-up at times. By the early 1950s, Thayer was saying that there were several German centers of Forteanism—which was likely an exaggeration—and some of those know doubt were because of Parr, but some, apparently, he was not aware of, and was trying to meet with, so as to knit them together.
He continued to send in material. He received credit in Doubt 36 (April 1952), for an unknown contribution; he sent in a magazine Thayer had already seen; he received another credit in Doubt 43 (February 1954) for another unknown contribution. He appeared in the next issue, too, for a story about fluorine poisoning. (Thayer hated fluoridated water.) He continued his correspondence with Russell, though it’s hard to decipher. He sent, for example, a cutting that “ain’t exactly Forteana [but] I couldn’t resist sending it to you!” And received another credit for another unknown clipping in Doubt 45, July 1954. It is worth noting that much of this rash of activity occurred when he had returned to London for a while—he was between German gigs, though it doesn’t seem that at the time Parr thought of it as being “between” them: he doesn’t seem mohave expected to return to Germany. But he did.
And apparently he continued to spread the Fortean word, though his activities are not known, exactly. In August 1954, Thayer told Russell that “Parr is going great guns for us.” His activity was so enthusiastic that Thayer was a little suspicious—though Thayer was always suspicious, and was never reluctant to joke at anybody’s expense. He asked Russell, “Have you met him personal? I think he’s a Scotland Yard, but that’s how we bore from within.” Two years later, when Parr was either having trouble paying his dues or was too busy to think about them—Thayer was more than happy to wave them away. He told Russell, “Parr shall be carried gratis as long as I have a gratis to carry him in.” (He did get credit for paying the following year.)
There came more credits, too. In Doubt 47 (January 1955) he was acknowledged for sending in an article about a weird medical trick (that was translated by another member.) It was using the iris to diagnose disease. Thayer mentioned a Hungarian doctor who used to do it, and the article referred to Emil Stramke, who was put on trial for the pratice in Germany. (Thayer hated the prosecution of alternative healers, since he believed mainstream ones were no better, they just had the sanction of the state.) The member who translated the article said he had been cured of ulcers by a practitioner of the art. Parr himself translated a squib (from German) about a rain of fat in Italy that was mentioned in Doubt 52 (May 1956). He received credit for sending in something on flying saucers in Doubt 54 (June 1957), and a generic credit in Doubt 57 (July 1958).
The most important mention came in Doubt 55 (November 1957). Parr sent in a letter from the president of the Gesellschaft für Erdweltforschung to a German rocket club (something like the British Interplanetary Society). The president said that those launching satellites and planning travel through the solar system assumed that traditional astronomy was correct. But it wasn’t!, he said. As Parr noted, the Gesellschaft thought that the earth was a hollow globe, and humans lived inside it. And the president was willing to bet his belief on the behavior of satellites—they would not work. Parr thought the Gesellschaft was wrong, but he admired the president’s staking his belief system on a single test, and wondered if he would be brave enough to do the same: was there a single test that would convince him to not believe in conventional astronomy?
Thayer introduced Parr’s contribution with an encomium. “Our long-time and highly honored MFS Julian Parr,” he called him. And he mentioned that Parr had—continuing his evangelical duties—written an article for ANDROmeda, a magazine that served German science fiction fans and flying saucer enthusiasts, about Fort and the Society. I have not seen the article, which is a pity.
It is a pity because Parr is an interesting, and important, Fortean, yet too little is known about his Forteanism. Judging by his contributions and his correspondence with Russell, he had relatively conventional beliefs. (He may or may not have opposed the fluoridation of water.) And yet he seems to have enjoyed playing with Fortean concepts, even if he was fine putting them back on the shelf at the end of the day. He appreciated hoaxes, although he did not believe them. What, then, did he see as Fort’s role, or the role of the Fortean Society? Was it just to throw brick-bats, then disappear again? Was it to genuinely challenge science and the power of the state? (He worked for the British government, after all.) None of this is clear—though it is clear that he was important in bringing Anglo-American ideas about science fiction and Forteanism to Germany.
