Dharma Initiative
The Dharma Initiative is a fictional research project featured in the American television series Lost. It was first discussed in the second-season episode Orientation.
Most information about the Dharma Initiative comes from an orientation training film that has been noticeably cut or damaged in places; it has a copyright date of 1980 and is designated the third of six such films.
The Dharma Initiative, developed in 1970 by University of Michigan doctoral candidates Gerald and Karen DeGroot and financed through The Hanso Foundation, was intended to study the nuances of human behavior in their sociological and ecological contexts through a communal social sciences research compound. The project's areas of study included meteorology, psychology, parapsychology, zoology and electromagnetism. B.F. Skinner, an American psychologist, is mentioned as an influence on the DeGroots' work. Skinner authored the book Walden Two.
The orientation film focuses on Station Three (aka "the Swan"), originally built as a laboratory to study the unique electromagnetic fluctuations emanating from Station Three's sector of the island. An unspecified "incident" early in the station's experiments resulted in a change of focus: a two-member crew, replaced every 540 days, is now under orders to enter the code "4 8 15 16 23 42" into a microcomputer terminal every 108 minutes (which is the sum of the code numbers.) Once entered, and a button labeled "Execute" is pressed, a countdown-timer resets. The film stresses the importance of adhering to the procedure by entering the code quickly and accurately, but gives no reason or potential consequences. Station Three's most recent occupant, Desmond, said that his predecessor (a man named Kelvin) referred to the process as "saving the world." Desmond panics and leaves when it appears the code will not be entered at the scheduled time, due to damage of the computer terminal. As of episode 4, season 2, Station Three was being explored by the Lost castaways, who have taken on the responsibility to continue entering the number sequence.
Dharma Initiative Logos
Dharma Initiative Research Stations and "research" animals in the waters surrounding the island can display a unique octagonal logo containing trigrams that may be based on The Bagua from the East Asian religion, Taoism. The outer eight edges of the logo appear to be, more or less, consistent, but the central panel of the octagon can differ. In the case of Station Three, the central panel of the logo is an image of a swan—the name of the station—with the word "DHARMA" spelled out across it. A different logo is revealed on the tail of the shark that attacks Sawyer. Similarly, the logo on the walls of the compound occupied by the tail-section survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 also has yet another different central panel (which is an arrow image with the word "DHARMA").
- Station Three uses "The Swan" version of the Dharma Initiative Logo.
- Compound with tail-section survivors displays the arrow version of the Dharma Initiative Logo.
- The shark's fin has a third distinct central panel in its Dharma Initiative logo.
Trivia
- The Bagua, an octagonal Taoism symbol, is the central component of the Dharma Initiative's logo.
- Dharma is essentially a religious concept, and though its precise definition is elusive, it can be loosely described as 'the way to the higher truths'.
