INSISTENCE ON ANONYMITY AND DENIABILITY

Because members of the sect worry about reprisals and persecution from members of other faith traditions, about which the Planetarians have issued opinions which could be construed as dismissive, they insist on absolute anonymity. Planetarians have confirmed a small portion of their doctrines, rituals and symbols, but have chosen to keep much of it under a shroud of limited secrecy. Members thought it would be clever to underscore the unreliability of ancient religious texts (such as the Bible and the Koran) by mirroring their habit of producing manuscripts without vowels, word breaks or punctuation. In ancient times, this was done to preserve precious and expensive writing materials, but resulted in controversies about the actual meaning of a text and the existence of variant texts. Planetarians have adopted this method of textual transmission not only because they value the symbolism of conservation, but because the exact meaning of the text can never be definitively verified apart from the confirmation of a sect member, and thereby carries the degree of deniability the sect feels it needs to avoid persecution.