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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. The DHARMA Initiative set out on the Island because it is the only place in the world that escapes fate, as shown in the flash-forwards of post-Island Oceanic Six who got back to the lives they had succesfully broke apart from while on the Island.
• 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.
• DHARMA has been searching for the Island ever since the Hostiles took control over it. They have so far been unsuccessful. Naomi was sent as a scout to find the Island. Now that the Island is found, they will try and kill everyone on the Island and take control over it. The Others and the survivors must unite in order to survive and defeat the Initiative.
  • This seems possible, if you read the season 4 spoiler page, "what is coming to the Island is worse than the Others."
    • Who says the Losties will side with the Others? After all, they lived in the Hatch, ate DHARMA's air-dropped food...
      • DHARMA will certainly have wrath on the survivors, because its likely they want the Island to remain a secret and they (Locke) killed Naomi. Plus in a recent screenshot Jack is being held at gunpoint by a parachutist.
        • Something like this would indicate, at least in my opinion, that DHARMA is not nearly as benevolent as they have presented themselves to their employees, etc. and perhaps their experiments are not at all intended for the purpose they tell everyone in the training films. It could be plausible that some of the initiatives benevolent symbolism, such as the Namaste phrase, being founded in part by a reformed arms manufacturer, etc. is just a veneer put on to make themselves appear to be good, while they are in fact not.
• DHARMA engineered the plane to break up over the Island without killing everyone on board. Some of the survivors work for DHARMA and have been sent to spy on the Others.
  • Possible, but odd. It seems like a dodgy way to land a team.
• The DHARMA Initiative is still out there - the food drop seems to indicate that. Producing something as expensive as an air-drop food shipment suggests to me that the Initiative is kind of in the dark as to the purge. Are they...
  • 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)
  • Biding their time, waiting for a chance to have another crack at the Hostiles when they least expect it? (Maybe they're poisoning the food shipments to slowly kill off the Others)(Well, okay, probably not, but that would be so crafty).
  • Going to come back now that the Swan has been cooked (The Swan seems to have been the last operating station, and the food drop was intended for Kelvin and friends). Perhaps that Swan's detonation is their cue to either come back or give up for good and do something less insane, like Biosphere II.
  • The food drops were done years before and expected to land in the future - unaware of the purge the drops still continue from the past. This is supported by the fact no planes were heard when food appears.
    • ...or it is the exact same food drop done once, yet the Island repeats the drop in perpetuity.
• The DHARMA Initiave was/is owned by Charles Widmore. This explains why he said, "the Island was mine, it will be again," to Ben.
• The DHARMA Initiave 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. The DHARMA initiave knew of the Island and its unique abilities to keep people alive longer. Ben grew up because he was inside of the sonar fence surrounding the barracks. He may have been chosen the leader of the Others not only because he sided with the "hostels" but also because he was the only one of them who could grow up.

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.
  • This date as the cancellation of the DHARMA Initiative appears unlikely as Kelvin Inman was recruited into the Initiative sometime after the conclusion of the first Gulf War in the 1990's.
    • Wrong: 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.
  • Also, this is somewhat refuted by the fact that the console in The Flame apparently is still active, and makes the supply drop. The supply drop contains recent goods with DHARMA logos. If the automated system somehow remained functional, the supplies would've still spoiled long ago.
• No specific cancellation date was specified by Hugh McIntyre, besides the year 1987. The cancellation of the Initiative - or a change from its original objectives - may have coincided with the arrival and subsequent deaths of Rousseau's team. Rousseau's second transmission, heard in "The Long Con" suggests that her team met a group as yet unidentified island residents. These may have been members of the DHARMA Initiative.
• 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.

The Initiative is still active

• The fact that fresh supplies are still being dropped to the Island also suggests links are still maintained with the outside world and the DHARMA Initiative is still believed active and ongoing despite the purge.
  • 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 Others have been maintaining the front to give the impression that the Initiative is still active so that food and supply drops will still be made.
• 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 and Radzinsky, 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. As i doubt many of the Others would have wanted to live in the Swan, although i've never seen the Others using anything from the DHARMA other than the Stations.
• The Purge became an emergency supplement to DHARMA's original plan. According to this theory, the original DHARMA operators somehow got off track. The initiative thus contacted Ben to engineer a purge, take the reigns, and correct a listing ship.
• 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 Initiative’s Goals…

• 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, and the purpose of crashing the plane on the Island was to have the human genes available for cloning and eternal life experiments.
  • This could be a reason why the Others want to capture only children and "good people".
• 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 (evidence includes Kelvin and the continued supply drops) 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.
• The experiments were to find out about reactions to stress in people and animals. They changed the climate of the polar bears, in nature environmental changes are known to cause evolutionary changes in creatures. The psychological experiments on people measured the common reactions to all manner of stress, stress from a dangerous enemy ( known as the hostiles but really actors dressed in the same costumes the Others used to intimidate the Losties), stress from a disease epidemic ( this would mean the sickness is not real and the vaccines placebo, however symptoms could be induced by implants as in Claire's case), stress from concern over the end of the world ( the button), to find out what it is that makes some people able to become heroes and deal with stress constructively, while others become depressed, suicidal or violent. They may have been trying to find out how to force the evolution of mankind to a more advanced race who can have telepathic, psychic type abilities and be able to solve the problems that are bringing about the destruction of the world. The Others could be those who mastered these experiments, and they may have had a war (purge) with those who went crazy. They may have also discovered that the ability to change, evolve, or use stress constructively is genetic.
• DHARMA was trying to create super-humans using genetic mofification. They used people who had special powers linked the Island and those people rebelled to become the Hostiles. People seem to develop powers on the Island : Healing (Rose), Psychic (Desmond). These powers are genetic, but awaken by the magnetic power of the Island. DHARMA was trying to control these powers.
• The DHARMA Initiave 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. The DHARMA initiave knew of the Island and its unique abilities to keep people alive longer. Ben grew up because he was inside of the sonar fence surrounding the barracks. He may have been chosen the leader of the Others not only because he sided with the "hostels" but also because he was the only one of them who could grow up

DHARMA Map…

• They have wired the the Island with an intranet called DHARMATel.
• 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.

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.

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.

Other theories

• DHARMA are present day people recruited by people from the future who cannot tamper with the past. These future people created the Island and sent it back in time to solve the Valenzetti Equation before extinction could occur in the future. The future people are not allowed to interact forcefully with the past so they recruit people and 'nudge' them in certain directions. DHARMA was killed because Widmore - a financial backer for DHARMA - tried to take the Island in a direction the futurists did not agree with.
• The DHARMA Initiative is responsible for putting the survivors on Oceanic Flight 815,they wanted them to crash on the Island.Each worker from the DHARMA initiative was assigned a person to put on the plane.For example:

-Matthew Abaddon,John Locke. -Bryan,Shannon Rutherford and Boone Carlyle -Margo Shepard,Jack Shepard. -Brian Porter,Michael Dawson and Walt Lloyd. -Ray Mullen,Kate Austen. -Alyssa Cole,Sayid Jarrah. -Mr.Paik,Sun-Hwa Kwon and Jin-Soo Kwon -Martha Twomey,Hugo Reyes. -Hibbs,James Sawyer Ford. -Jason Mccormack,Ana Lucia Cortez. -Liam Pace,Charlie Pace. -Richard Malkin,Claire Littleton,Aaron Littleton and Mr.Eko.