If the Parma is considered a mystical effect, wouldn't it have to penetrate the MR of a magus to have any effect on them? On the magus who is to be protected by the Parma, I mean.
This is one interpretation. And it means that any mage who has a longevity ritual, Parma, a spell to see in the dark, or buffs like Endurance of the Berserker, can’t make physical attacks against anyone or thing with magic resistance.
So, an entire school of Flambeau is useless. And any magical creature who has a mystical effect, such as an active power, can’t make a physical attack.
I don’t think the game was designed to be played like this. But, I do see the logic. When you start with logical premises in a magical world, it does lead to some absurdities.
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I am having trouble parsing your question. Them who?
I think you might be saying: "A magus is protected by Magic Resistance, e.g. from his Forms. The magus, at sunrise, raises his Parma Magica. Wouldn't said Parma Magica have to penetrate the magus' Magic Resistance, in order to protect him?".
If that's what you are saying, sure. The magus should simply lower his Magic Resistance when raising the Parma Magica. I think that if one gains Magic Resistance after being first affected by an ongoing mystical effect, said effect is not dispelled in the process (I may be wrong on this one). This also means that Parma Magica won't interfere with itself: once it's up, it's through, so to speak 
That is what I am saying, yes.
The only known way for a magus to lower his Form Resistance is by lowering his Parma Magica.
So unless he already has his Parma up, he can't lower his MR.
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Hmm. If this reading of the rules were correct, it would be problematic for a large number of reasons (for example almost all apprentices have no Parma, but do have their Forms opened - it would mean they'd never be able to lower their own Magic Resistance!).
But I do not think it's correct. The rules say that "A magus can suppress his Parma by concentrating, and this [concentrating] also suppresses his Form resistance." It's like saying that if my shirt is stained, I can remove the stain by washing it, and this also removes any bad smell it might bear. But this does not mean that, unless my shirt has a stain on it, I cannot wash it. I can still wash it, and although there's no stain to remove, the process will still take care of the bad smell.
This seems implied, too, by the explanation of what happens to an unconscious magus. His Parma goes down at the next sunrise/sunset, but his Form Resistance stays up, and there's no way for him to lower it while unconscious. While certainly not conclusive evidence, I've always read it as implying that (only) once a magus is conscious and capable of concentrating, he can lower his Form Resistance simply by concentrating. There are similar arguments to be made with the text about what happens to Magic Resistance when body and spirit are separated (somewhere in TMRE).
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It seems pretty evident that the ability to concentrate to suppress your resistance is a feature of the Parma, but also affects your Form Resistance. Apprentices and hedge mages will thus have to deal with the problems of needing penetration to cast non-personal spells on themselves, or receive them from others, with the possible exception of being able to suppress Parma when someone is protecting you with theirs, not sure if that's a thing.
The Parma is like taking a pile of rocks (form resistance) you're hiding inside and turning it into a proper fortress (the Parma uses what you already have and improves it), you can't just open a pile of rocks, but the fortress has gates you can let people in through (poor analogy, but I couldn't really think of a better one).
To me it does not seem evident at all. What to me seems evident is that the same process that suppresses Parma suppresses Form Resistance too. It never says that there must be a Parma up in the first place.
Magical defenses are not optional or under the control of the hedge wizard, and work even if he is unconscious. Note that this means that magic defenses apply to friendly effects, too.
-Hedge Magic Revised Edition, page 10
Hedge magi explicitly have no control over their magical resistance, and I don't see why Hermetic Magi should be any different absent the specific rules given under the Parma Magica.
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RAW says that suppressing your Parma Magica also suppresses your Form Resistance.
While it might be possible to lower your Form Resistance in some other way, no other mechanism for doing so is given or suggested.
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Not quite. The RAW says:
A magus can suppress his Parma by concentrating, and this also suppresses his Form resistance."
So, what's the "this" that also suppresses his Form resistance?
The most obvious candidate is [the magus] concentrating [on the suppression], not the suppression of Parma Magica itself, for two reasons.
First, "concentrating" is the closest plausible candidate to "this".
Second, the symmetry of the two parts of the sentence, and the "also", suggests that the same cause (the magus concentrating) produces both effects. Had the suppression of Parma itself been the cause of Form Resistance suppression, the sentence would have read "A magus can suppress his Parma by concentrating, which in turn suppresses his Form resistance."
Then, concentration independently suppresses both Parma and Form Resistance, meaning it can still suppress either if the other cannot be suppressed (e.g. because it does not exist).
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I disagree. I believe "this" refers to "suppress his Parma by concentrating", and that this is the most obvious candidate.
If the text was supposed to say that you can suppress your Form Resistance by concentrating, without involving the Parma, then it is written in a very convoluted and confusing way. Which is why I don't believe it was supposed to say that.
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Hmm... that's a bit of a long-shot argument, particularly given that the one thing that Hermetic Magi do not have in common with Hedge Wizards is Magic Resistance.
That said, I think there is a Hermetic counterpart to Hedge Wizards' "unsuppressible" Magic Defenses: the Form Bonuses (=Form score/5), e.g. that +2 to avoid disease that your apprentice's Corpus 6 gives him, even if he wants to catch a disease so as to have an excuse to stay lazily in bed.