In the March 1945 issue of Amazing Stories, “I Remember Lemuria” kicked off a phenomenon that continues to this day: the Shaver Mystery.
It took readers by storm, and increased circulation of the magazine. It reached its crescendo with the June 1947 issue of Amazing Stories that was devoted to the Mystery.
While many were receptive to the Mystery, others in fandom had major issues with it being presented as fact and not fiction and called it a hoax, and further stories pretty much ended in the Ziff-Davis pulps in mid-1948.
But what was the “Shaver Mystery,” and who was behind it?
Per the Shaver Mystery, a group of advanced aliens — the Titans, Atlans, and Nortans — came to Earth a long time ago, and built an advanced civilization. But the Sun started to emit deadly rays, so they fled underground and rebuilt their civilization.
Soon this wasn’t enough, and they fled to another world. But they left behind their advanced technology in those caverns, along with their formal servants.
Some came to the surface and became humans. But others remained in the caves. The worst were the psychotic “deros” who used the advanced technology to cause conflict and suffering among humans. There are the good “teros,” but they are too few to keep the deros in check. All of this was revealed to those sensitive enough to grasp it, as well as through records left in rocks and other sources.
Richard S. Shaver (1907-75) was the author of this “mystery,” which was promoted by editor/publisher Ray Palmer (1910-77). Shaver claimed to be able to gain information about these ancient races and the deros, and his writings were to warn about them.
It should be noted that Shaver had spent time in an insane asylum and heard voices. But he was a true believer. Today he would have been celebrated as an “outside artist.” Back then he was seen as just crazy.
Palmer is more complex. It’s unclear how much of it he really believed, but his promotion of it helped the magazines he edited.
The first Shaver Mystery story was a non-fiction article by Shaver that Palmer re-wrote as fiction (though keeping Shaver’s ideas). Early Shaver works were co-written or ghosted with others before he started writing his own works entirely himself. Claims that Palmer re-wrote all of them don’t appear to be true.
After leaving the Ziff-Davis pulps (Amazing Stories, Fantastic Adventures) in 1948, Palmer had launched his own publishing house, putting out Fate, that promoted the new craze of flying saucers, as well as other magazines including SF pulp Other Worlds where the Shaver Mystery found a new home from 1949 to 1953.
Later in 1961, Palmer started a new, large-size magazine called The Hidden World that reprinted old stories along with new works that lasted 16 issues. These are being reprinted (the first 10 have been reprinted) by Global Communications.
I first heard about the Shaver Mystery when a young SF fan and read about it in places like the “Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction,” but had no access to the actual stories. Now, many of the stories are being reprinted.
There is a long-running fanzine devoted to it called Shavertron (now a website) which has recently been reprinted in four volumes. Another fanzine was The Hollow Earth Hassle, and a collection from it has been published as “The Best of the Hollow Earth Hassle.”
Pulp Tales Press has started The Richard S. Shaver Magazine, reprinting the original stories in order in a facsimile version, but only the first volume is out. It has the first handful of Shaver Mystery stories including “I Remember Lemuria,” “Thought Records of Lemuria,” “Cave City of Hel,” and others.
Armchair Fiction has a series of “Shaver Mystery” books, each with a reprint at least two larger stories in each volume. Six volumes have come out so far on pretty much an annual basis, and they plan for at least a total of 10 volumes, maybe more.
For background on Shaver and Palmer, Richard Toronto (editor of Shavertron) has two books out: “War over Lemuria” and “Shaverology.” Another major writer on Shaver, who also apparently knew him, is Timothy G. Beckley at Global Communications which has put out several Shaver-related works.
Thanks to these new works and collections I can finally start reading the Shaver Mystery for myself. I view these works as fiction, regardless of what others think. It seems clear to me that Shaver may have clearly believed this, but this was due to his mental issues. I’m uncertain about Ray Palmer, or other “true believers” in all of this. Make up your own mind about this.
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