DHARMA Initiative/Theories

From Lostpedia

DHARMA Initiative’s Goals and Presence on the Island

• It is known that the DHARMA Initiative's purpose was to change the numerical values of any one of the core factors in the Valenzetti Equation that scientifically calculated the fate of mankind.
  • Could it be that Valenzetti was the one who also found the island? We only know it was a "very intelligent" person, and given the central role of the equation in itself, it doesn't seem odd if Valenzetti also managed to stumble upon the island somehow...
• Part of the DHARMA Initiative was to stop any volcanic activity from destroying the Island.
  • Olivia tells her students in "The Man Behind the Curtain" that there is a volcano on the Island but it hasn't erupted "in a very long time".
  • As Ben leads Locke to Jacob's house, there is a fine powdery substance surrounding the building. This is a trail of ash from the last time the volcano erupted.
• The DHARMA Initiative was started to research the Island's original inhabitants. Richard has seemed to never grow older from when we see him in flashbacks to now on the Island.
• If one accepts the reason for the DHARMA Initiative's creation from the Lost Experience ARG: to change the outcome of the Valenzetti equation, then in context of "Flashes Before Your Eyes", the DI could never succeed--much like Desmond believes he cannot change Charlie's future, neither could the DHARMA Initiative change the future of humanity.
• The DHARMA history presented in the orientation film is completely untrue, and only presented as an "explanation" as to why the residents of the Hatch need to push the button.
• The DHARMA Initiative covers an Eternal Life program
• The DHARMA initiative is designed to preserve life on earth after an Armageddon-like event such as a nuclear disaster or pandemic disease outbreak. DHARMA was designed to understand how to modify the Valenzetti equation, but failed in its original purpose. Instead the research was useful in making the Island itself into a modern-day Noah's ark. This research appears to be carried on by both the Others/Hostiles and DHARMA after the Purge.
  • The electromagnetic field provides protection for the Island from some future incident. Its protective properties cause planes, helicopters, and hot air balloons to crash when they near it.
  • The zoology research has acclimated animal species to live in the tropics (polar bears, for example) so that they will survive the incident and can be returned to their original climates. The hydra station previously housed sea animals in aquariums and other predators in cages, supporting the Noah's ark concept or rounding up a variety of species to save them.
  • Repopulating earth makes solving the infertility problem a priority, thus bringing Juliet to the Island and forcibly detaining her. It also explains the interest in kidnapping children since the Others lack a younger generation. The Island also substantially improves male fertility.
  • Aside from the known problems with pregnancy, the Island also has obvious healing properties which would also make it an ideal location for a Noah's ark.
    • The name of the "Orchid" station, furthermore, is ideal to describe using the greenhouse to disguise the heart of a Noah-like operation: it is an "ark, hid".
  • Researching the backgrounds of individuals who have accidentally or unwittingly arrived at the Island -- the Losties, Rousseau, Desmond, the real Henry Gale -- fits the concept of selecting the best people by some moral or spiritual standard to carry on the human race, while weeding out the flawed.
  • In "One of Us", the private Mittelos Bioscience airline that flies people toward the Island is Herarat, possibly a reference to Mount Ararat, the location where Noah's ark landed according to Genesis 8:4.
• A program designed to improve the quality of life of human beings by accelerating the path to enlightenment.
• DHARMA consists of scientists with an egalitarian ideology:
  • The initiative is based on the notion that with scientific experimenting they can create a utopian society where everybody is given an equal opportunity in life. Equality for them means that everyone is depending on each other to the same degree and that no one is redundant. They believe in the duality of existence, that all human beings have a need to experience domination in its completion, both being the one in power and the one subjected to power. They also believe that all human beings have a desire to depend on someone and at the same time wants someone to depend on them, that these are basic human needs. In fact, so important to us are these needs that if taken away, life loses its purpose.
• The unseen leaders of DHARMA were at the front of a privately funded revolution in genetic technology. To control the body of their society they need to own each body of each individual living in that society. People who sacrifice themselves for others are by DHARMA considered good. Self sacrifice means they possess a high level of empathy and conscience which speaks of a high moral and loyalty for a society that imposes on the freedom of the individual for a greater good. While creating an outer utopia in society, they are simultaneously constructing an internal utopia by retrieving human raw material in the form of the building stones of life – DNA and RNA. Hereditary traits are selected from those that they value as exceptionally fit or "special". Part of the experiment is if happiness can be manufactured and if coming generations can be guaranteed to feel free and content by being designed in vitro.
  • In "Par Avion", Mikhail tells Locke, Kate, and Sayid that they were "not on the list because they were "flawed, angry, frightened." This would seem to support this theory.
  • The experimenting is taking place underground in a hunt for "perfection", to end all suffering. (Yet, ironically, the story unfolding in Lost proves that we need suffering in order to find ourselves.)
    • The video in Room 23 seems to confirm that this is indeed at least one of the values of the Initiative.
• The DHARMA Initiative was researching whether evil is inherent or learned. We have been presented with a very one sided version of events. Most viewers are on the side of the Losties, seeing the Others as aggressive and hostile. The Others are behaving with no less suspicion and violence than has been exhibited by the losties. We are more accepting of Sayid's torturing Ben or of Charlie's killing Ethan because we saw the events leading up to them and somehow feel their actions were justified. Also, the tailies attacked Sawyer, Jin and Michael without provocation. When we later found out what the tailies had been through, we came to accept their actions. Why presume that the Others have any less reason to be afraid of (or aggressive towards )strangers? Lost is a demonstration of how easily a person can come to accept what they had previously considered to be abhorrent. DHARMA Initiative was trying to establish if it is true that there is no limit to the extremes of human nature, given the correct stimuli.
• The branch of DHARMA loyal to Thomas Mittelwerk is trying to engineer a virus that will target certain genetic characteristics and thus kill exactly 30% of the world's population, as described in the Sri Lanka video. They believe decimating the population will change the Valenzetti Equation and save the world, and initiated this experiment when all attempts at changing the Numbers through magnetism etc. had failed. The Losties were either intended as test subjects due to their genetic make-ups, or became involved by accident. The Others may originally have been part of this, but are now more loyal to Alvar Hanso, who is alive and somehow trying to counter his former organisation's work through fertility research. He may be the mysterious Jacob; Jacob or Israel "fathered a nation" and had 12 sons...a very fertile man. Alvar originally discovered the Island while searching for his grandfather Magnus Hanso, who was on the Black Rock, and found its natural resources made it perfect for Valenzetti research.
• Assuming what is known via The Lost Experience is canon. Knowing that the Valenzetti Equation was pointing toward the end of the world, the island was chosen by the DHARMA Initiative to essentially create a "world laboratory". The different stations were established to modify different attributes on the island. While the stations proceeded in their research, the Valenzetti Equation was run every 108 minutes to see if they had managed to change the numbers. The terminal in the Swan was used to broadcast the numbers so that DI would pick it up in a listening station off-island.
• The DHARMA Initiative may have been brought to the Island by Jacob. This would appear to be contradicting with the fact that Jacob is normally associated with the Hostiles/Others. However, it could be related to the ongoing rivalry between Jacob and his nemesis. We know from dialog between Jacob and his enemy that there have been people on the Island before, most likely the people who built the Temple and other ancient structures. There may have been a fight among them, as his nemesis pointed out. Because there weren't any of the original inhabitants left, Jacob decided to bring the Black Rock to the Island to start over again. As the years passed, Jacob's nemesis found a way to prevent Jacob from communicating with his people. This gave his nemesis the chance to impersonate Jacob and thus control his people. Jacob's response to this was to bring a new group of people to the Island. The DHARMA Initiative had something in common with the ancient inhabitants, but was also very modern. DHARMA maybe had more knowledge on the Temple and Monster than the Hostiles. This explains why they build the Barracks over the summoning chamber, why they were the only ones who had a name for the monster, why the Temple had a DHARMA logo, why the countdown timer had hieroglyphs, why Horace Goodspeed would build a cabin for Jacob, why Paul would have an Ankh necklace, and why the Frozen Wheel has the shape of an octagon, like the DHARMA logo.

DHARMA Initiative’s Status…

The Initiative is no longer active

• The blast door map suggests that Hugh McIntyre's claim that DHARMA Initiative was canceled in 1987 could be partially true. The map appears to be an attempt to piece together a history of the DHARMA Initiative, based on the limited information available to Kelvin and Radzinsky. It doesn't mention any significant DHARMA-related events occurring on the Island between the mid-1980's and the 2000's. Indeed, it suggests that several DHARMA facilities were damaged, shut down, or abandoned as a result of catastrophes that occurred in the early to mid-1980's. These events may have convinced the Hanso Foundation that the Initiative was destined to fail. By 1987, they may have decided to cancel all active DHARMA research projects while leaving only the Swan Station running, so as to prevent an electromagnetic disaster. They may have continued to send personnel and supply drops to the Swan well into the 2000's, even though no active research was being done there. As has been speculated elsewhere, the Others could be DHARMA personnel and/or test subjects who were abandoned after the Initiative was canceled.
  • Given Kelvin's background in the CIA it is possible he was not working for DHARMA at all. He never offered any information which confirmed anything we know about DHARMA and if he was recruited pre-purge he would have been in the Swan for over ten years.
• Rousseau's distress signal has been playing for approximately 16 years, dating the initial transmission of the call to 1988 (give or take, due to the varying duration of the calls). One would think that the radio tower would be of vital importance to the Initiative, as its broadcast of the changed numbers would have been one of the main methods to communicate their success. This suggests that at the time Rousseau changed the Numbers, there were no DHARMA members there to change the message back to the Numbers, lending the impression that the initiative had been disbanded, or "purged" during or prior to the year 1988.
  • That analysis seems logical. The struggle between DHARMA and The Hostiles however was a long running one (given Ben's age when his school came under attack and his age at the purge, the conflict could be up to twenty years long) that climaxed with the Purge. It is possible that they abandoned the Radio Tower due to the ongoing conflict, but before the Purge.
  • We know the Purge took place in 1992, because we saw that Horace died in it and he told Locke he had been dead for twelve years. DHARMA seemed to be going strong on the island at the time of the Purge. In the Sri Lanka video, Hanso says, "A radio transmitter has also been erected on the island broadcasting in a frequency and encryption known only to us. The transmitter will only broadcast the core numerical values of the Valenzetti Equation." The people on the island didn't use the radio tower to communicate; that's what the Flame / the Looking Glass were for. They would have no reason to go to the radio tower unless they had to physically change the numbers in the transmission, and they obviously were never successful in changing the core numerical values. The people living on the island probably never knew Rousseau had changed the transmission. The only people who would know would be whoever was monitoring the signal. So we know that DHARMA was no longer functioning the same way off the island in 1988, but there's nothing to say those on the island weren't continuing their research with the same intentions. They were basically self-sufficient except for food drops, which Hanso said would continue in perpetuity.

The Initiative is still active

• The DHARMA Initiative is still out there - the food drop seems to indicate that. They do not know that The Purge took place.
  • Being duped by Ben, who knows what to tell them to make them think everything's A-OK. (Remember: the Initiative's security protocols have been known to include really bad jokes, and it's not impossible that something equally simple is keeping them out of the loop)
  • DHARMA organizers may have been aware of the original inhabitants of the Island or perhaps even placed them there as part of the experiment. Part of the experiment may have been observing how the DHARMA staff on the Island dealt with the problem of the hostiles already on the Island. Thus, part of the experiment is still being carried on despite the purge, observing how Ben and any other surviving DHARMA members coexist with the hostiles. This would also explain why there are still supply drops.
• Additionally, Kelvin tells Desmond that he joined the DHARMA Initiative, which must have been in the early 1990s because it was after he served in the Gulf War. This is further proof that the Initiative was not canceled in 1987 as claimed by Hugh McIntyre.
  • The DHARMA Initiative's funds were cut off in 1987 following the 1985 Incident but for an unknown reason, it was kept active without the Foundation's funds untill the personnel was killed during the purge, in 1993, after the end of the Gulf War (1991). This is supported by the fact that the AH/MDG Incident (blast door map) seems to indicate a split between the The Hanso Foundation and the DHARMA initiative: Alvar Hanso/M? DeGroot Incident.
• Similarly, the Hanso Foundation could be lying about their current connections to DHARMA and is still actively funding it under tight scrutiny.
• The Hostiles killed all on-island Initiative members during the Purge, but still recognized the importance of the Swan. Since they didn't want to push the button themselves, they decided to dress up in Initiative gear one last time, go to the mainland to hire Kelvin (as we already know that Radzinsky is already on the Island in 1977), and leave them in the Swan with no intention of ever coming back for them. They also told them the same things the Initiative would have said, to ensure a smoother cover story - i.e. beware the Hostiles. Prior to Purge, Swan-workers actually were relieved after 540 days as promised.
  • If this is true then they might have used the Pearl Station to check on the status of the people in the Swan.
• Unless there is a mistake at the factory, the DHARMA initiative is still active. Food is still being dropped on the Island and the stations for the most part continue to work.

An Initiative is active but it is not the original one

• After the Purge, Thomas Mittelwerk remade the DHARMA Initiative to suit his own purposes. The Initiative seen in DHARMA Initiative Recruiting Project is that incarnation, still secretly being run by Mittelwerk behind the scenes. It no longer has any direct connection to Alvar Hanso, his ideas, or his foundation, which is why its name is no longer an acronym.

DHARMA Map…

• The "DI" in DI 9FFTR731 likely stands for DHARMA Initiative.
• The DHARMA Initiative may have eight stations. Each DHARMA logo has the same eight characters surrounding it, and each character is unique. Also, as revealed in the Lost Experience, the Hanso Foundation is currently working on a Spider Protocol. Spiders have eight legs, which works with the theory. Plus, if you add all the possible stations in the blast door map together, including the ? in its center, there are 8 known stations on the Island.
  • Possibly, there is one station for every monitor in The Pearl, thus, we have 9 stations on the Island.
    • Plus the Pearl itself, so that makes 10 stations.
• Some of the notes on the blast door map might refer to meteorological experiments conducted by the DHARMA Initiative.
  • "Mountainous terrain most likely used by D.I.H.G. for meteorological research due to..." +
  • "Geological composition likely to cause magnetic interference with weather project"
• The Door in the Others Decoy village may be the station that is shown to be scribbled out at the top of the map. The fake door may have been originally constructed to dupe someone other than Michael and the Others simply reused it.
• The Door may also be scribbled out due to its destruction or damage. The Others may have simply found the door from the station and used it in the Decoy Village.
• the door could have possibly been a station but the hostiles may have been too much of a threat. It was abandoned, and built somewhere within the truce boundaries.

DHARMA Initiative’s Name

• DHARMA means "moral duty", or "Natural Law". The word originates from India, where it is believed that beings that live in harmony with DHARMA proceed more quickly toward Moksha (personal liberation).

Immanuel Kant was a philosopher who worked very much on "moral duty" in his time. He also argued that the source of the good lies not in anything outside the human subject, either in nature or given by God, but rather only in a good will. Kant was also influenced by other philosophers such as Rousseau and John Locke.

• Actually, moksha has a more specific meaning. It means liberation through personal union with an immanent and transcendent divine principle known as Brahman, which is quite different ultimately from, for example, the early Buddhist notion of liberation through nirvana, which literally means extinction. Later Buddhism (Mahayana and Tantric) make things more complex perhaps, but ultimately they embrace becoming and flux over being and permanence, which in the end still equals a sort of extinction. The problem with words like DHARMA in Lost is the fact that they have a variety of definitions in Indian religions, meaning different things to different people both there and in the West. There is an undecidability which may be quite intended with this.

The Dharma skeleton pit

• The people from flight 815 are traveling back in time on the island. We know Jin and Sawyer appear to be members of Dharma. To keep them alive Sawyer will probably have to come up with a lie to pass themselves off as Dharma members and later do it again when the O6 arrive. The castaways will become a large part of Dharma. They will meet Ben as a child and will do something that inspires his madness. Ben is obsessed with Juliet because he became obsessed with her as a child when she was a Dharma member. Ben and the Others will invariably slaughter the Initiative. When this happens several of the survivors of 815 will die in the purge and their skeletons will be in left in that pit...the pit where Ben shot Locke and left to die. Locke was amongst the bones of his people.
• As we know now, Ben's memory was erased while being "resurrected" in the temple. That's why he says that he was born on the island.
• Could it be that he means born in a sence such as baptism like he is reborn, not litterally born, he seems to understand that he was somewhere preisland as he says to Jacob, i have been on this island 35 years, as he was born in the 60's he understands he has lived 10 years else where

DHARMA Initiative as a kind of cult

• DHARMA Initiative has many levels. It may be a CIA or army black op, a corporation's project to harness and profit from something on the Island etc., but on some level, it is a kind of new age cult, hence all of the references to Eastern religions; the logo's reference to yin and yang symbols used in Chinese cosmology, mysticism, and notably the Yijing or I Ching and Daoism or Taoism; as well as the word "DHARMA" itself. Many cults, which had their heyday in the 1960s and 1970s in the West (but which are traceable to earlier developments such as the Thesophical Society in the 19th century), borrowed quite freely from the various religious traditions of Asia, and sometimes Ancient Egypt or European paganism: Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Egyptian religion, etc. These cults, with a practice going back to the Theosophists, then blended these elements of Asian religon (ideas such as the Dao/Tao, the opposition of yin and yang, karma, DHARMA, reincarnation, and the identity of human beings as themselves divine) with elements of modern "science." This combination of mysticism and science seems to fit with what the DHARMA initiative does quite well: the hatches and their contents are the latest in 1960s or 1970s technology, and yet there are various references to mysticism which are largely yet to be explained.

• Again, going back to the Theosophical Society, the idea behind these forms of thought has been to do what may be impossible, to overcome the contradiction between rational, scientific, and modern thought on the one hand, and spirituality, mysticism, and religion on the other. This overcoming seems to be what the DHARMA Initiative is all about. It also is one of the themes in the present of the Island: the Jack/Locke opposition. The ultimate end of such an overcoming has tended to be making human beings "awakened ones" (which is what "buddha" means) and/or making them into divine beings, and this too seems to fit nicely with the apparent desires of some of the characters in the show's present, i.e., Locke and Ben. Even Jack, as a doctor who has done miraculous work, can be seen as someone who is after god-like status.

DHARMA Initiative us from the future

• The DHARMA initiative is set up by somebody from the future. The person who set this all up, knew that in the end, mankind will eliminate itself. This person might have been Jacob. Although we seem to know that the De Groots set up the DHARMA initiative, what exactly do we know about them? They might be timetravellers from the future. Or Jacob might have travelled to the past, to manipulate them into setting up the initiative, just like he went back in time to manipulate the timelines of the losties. It also might have been his nemesis.

• If my above theory is true, this might explain the wide presence of DHARMA brands on the island. Why would an organization make their own groceries, playing cards and medicine, just for a small crew that is on the island? It would be much cheaper to buy from allready existing manufacturers like Kellogs or existing pharmaceutical companies, instead of setting up DHARMA factories to produce their own cornflakes, peanut butter and medicine. The reason for this is because the founder of the DHARMA initiative is from modern time, but DHARMA was set up in a time that all these modern products didn't yet exist. Therefore they had to make their own stuff.
• Maybe it is even the DHARMA initiative that is responsible for the eventual destruction of mankind. Jacob hates technology.

DHARMA Initiative as a tool of Jacob's nemesis

• The DHARMA Initiative is simply a convoluted and complex (but necessary) vehicle for Jacob's nemesis to create the conditions needed to destroy Jacob. Jacob's nemesis promised to find The Loophole, and after actually conceiving of a solution, he created the DI as the method to manipulate people until one of them could be influenced to want to kill Jacob (to be a premeditated murder, not simply an accidental/unintentional killing). Jacob's interactions with those involved (as seen in flashbacks) at stages prior to their involvement with the DI is Jacob's attempts to encourage the good in people and to plant the seeds that in the future may prevent Jacob's nemesis from pressuring them to kill Jacob. All theories and motivations behind the DI are simply creations by Jacob's nemesis (even if true, like the Valenzetti Equation) to facilitate the manipulation of humans for his purpose of destroying Jacob. The Others are people working at the behest of Jacob to counter his nemesis' efforts.