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'The Dharma Initiative' is a fictional research project featured in the American television series ''Lost''. It was introduced in the second season episode "Orientation". During the Lost Experience it was revealed that "Dharma" is an acronym for '''D'epartment of 'H'euristics 'A'nd 'R'esearch on 'M'aterial 'A'pplications''.

Contents

Background

Research stations

Station 1: The Arrow

Station 3: The Swan

Station 4: The Flame

Station 5: The Pearl

Station 6: The Orchid

Station ?: The Staff

Station ?: The Hydra

Station ?: The Looking Glass

As mythology on ''Lost''

In pop culture

References

Background

In 1970 University of Michigan doctoral candidates Karen and Gerald de Groot founded the Dharma Initiative with financial backing from the Hanso Foundation. Dharma brought together "scientists and free thinkers" from around the globe at a "large-scale communal research compound" to conduct research in various disciplines, including meteorology, psychology, parapsychology, zoology, electromagnetism, and a sixth discipline that the film begins to identify as "utopian social . . . ." before being cut off. American psychologist and ''Walden Two'' author B.F. Skinner is cited as an influence on the de Groots' work.

Eventually all Dharma Initiative employees stationed on the island had been "purged" by the "Hostiles" (the name given to the "Others" by the Dharma Initiative), who were present on the island long before the Initiative arrived.^[1] The Others killed those living in the Dharma Initiative camp with deadly gas and took over many of Dharma's stations and The Barracks.
The ''Lost Experience'' ARG revealed that the Dharma Initiative set out to find a way to change the "Valenzetti Equation", a mathematical formula designed to predict the end of the world. Thomas Mittelwerk, a member of the Hanso Foundation, later says, however, that "The Dharma Initiative failed".
Although it looks like Dharma vanished after the purge seen in The Man Behind the Curtain, when the inhabitants in the village were killed, there is much that indicates the project still exists. The attack on the village where it seems like Ben is the only survivor, happened in the early 90's. Yet Kelvin Joe Inman joined the Dharma Initiative somewhere in the 90's, after he had met Sayid in the Gulf War, apparently not aware of what had happened on the island before he arrived. In the episode "Lockdown", when the Swan Station gets new supplies sent down to the island with a parachute, all the food products are marked with the Dharma logo.

Research stations

The Dharma Initiative has placed several research stations around the island, which take the form of hidden, underground facilities or bunkers. The first to be discovered by the survivors is "Station 3" or "The Swan" which they refer to informally as "the hatch". They occupy it until the end of season 2, which culminated with the apparent destruction of the station. Six additional stations have since been visited: "The Pearl", "The Arrow", "The Staff", "The Flame", "The Hydra", and "The Looking Glass".
Each of these facilities has a particular logo associated with it: an octagon with an interior based on the bagua design, with a differing symbol at the center (pearl, swan, hydra, flame, caduceus (staff), arrow, and (white rabbit), also known as the looking glass.
In "Enter 77" Kate, Sayid and John enter "The Flame" and find that it has long been abandoned and is now occupied by The Others. "The Flame" was destroyed through a self-destruction system which was activated by John entering "77" into a computer terminal.
The following stations are listed by station number. Stations with an unknown station number will be listed in order of appearance.

Station 1: The Arrow

As of the third season finale, the purpose of the Arrow is unknown. It appears to the tail section survivors to have been used for storage and restocking. It was suggested in "The Man Behind the Curtain," that at some point, mathematics was one of the station's purposes.
The interior of The Arrow consists of only a few rooms. At the time of the habitation of the tail section survivors, the station is long abandoned with a filthy interior and only a few objects inside. Electricity still runs in The Arrow but only powers a couple of lamps and bare light bulbs. Electrical conduits and exposed wires run along the interior walls. The rooms are barren, with concrete floors and walls. At least one of the rooms however, appears to have been painted off-white with a teal border running along the bottom of the walls, but the paint has peeled and chipped.

Station 3: The Swan

The Swan was a laboratory for the Dharma Initiative's research on electromagnetism. According to the station's orientation film, an "incident" occurred early in the station's experiments. This event caused a consistent build-up of electomagnetic energy. which resulted in a change of the station's focus: a two-member crew, replaced every 540 days, were since instructed to enter a numeric code into a microcomputer terminal every 108 minutes. The station is equipped with a split-flap display timer, which is interfaced to a microcomputer terminal and connected to an alarm system.
The station is almost entirely underground, except for a "hatch" entrance shaft and a concealed door. The word "quarantine" is spray-painted on the inside of the hatch, and the numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42) are inscribed into its metallic exterior edge. The station is illuminated by powerful lamps shining through windows as a substitute for sunlight, with a main work area resembling a geodesic dome. A strong but localized magnetic field emanates from behind a wall, composed of rough concrete, that appears to have previously been a corridor to another section of "the hatch". The station also has several internal blast doors.
It is stocked with food, a record player with a collection of old LPs, a small library, an armory complete with automatic rifles and other firearms, a washer and dryer, a shower, and bunk beds.

Station 4: The Flame

The Flame is a communication station. It uses sonar and satellite technologies to communicate with the outside world and other stations on the island. It can also order a pallet drop.
Unlike the other stations, The Flame is not an underground bunker, but rather a wood-frame bungalow. A large satellite dish is on the roof. Inside the station is a living area, kitchen, and computer room. Below the building is a large basement containing supplies, including a library of Dharma Initiative operations manuals.

Station 5: The Pearl

The Pearl itself is a psychological experiment. While its orientation film asserts the purpose of those stationed in the Pearl is to monitor and record the activities of participants in Dharma Initiative projects, scientists in the Pearl station are under surveillance.
The station consists of a three-by-three bank of television sets, two chairs and a computer, hooked to a printer. On the wall there is a pneumatic tube which the orientation film stated was used to transport notebooks supposedly to another Dharma location, but as discovered in "Live Together, Die Alone," the tube goes nowhere, dumping all of the notebooks in an open field on the island. Built into the wall over the desk is a lamp to allow ample lighting over the desk.
According to the orientation film, two-person teams, working eight hour shifts over a three week period, are to watch the video displays and take notes on their observations. Every action, regardless of how subtle, is to be recorded into notebooks by the Pearl's team members.

Station 6: The Orchid

A video aired at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con shows footage of an orientation video for Station 6 ("The Orchid"), in which "Edgar Halowax" explains that, contrary to Dharma's statements that the station was for botanical research, the station is used for researching a "Casimir effect" exhibited by the Island.

Station ?: The Staff

The Staff is a medical research station. Much of its purpose has yet to be revealed as of the close of the third season.
The main entrance stairwell terminates at a circular doorway within the Staff. Connected to this doorway are two hallways on either side, giving the station the shape of a “V”. At the end of the right hallway is an operating room, consisting of built-in and overhead cabinets and surgical lights mounted to the ceiling. A nursery is located in the Staff and doorways leading into both hallways of the station. The walls of the nursery are painted baby blue. A locker room is located in the left hallway of the Staff. The room contains at least two rows of double-tier and one row of single-tier lockers with the Staff logo emblazoned on the locker doors. Hidden inside one of the lockers is a switch that unlocks a hidden vault behind a group of lockers that contains all of the medical equipment and nursery furniture that was seen by Claire in her flashback, including an ultrasound machine.

Station ?: The Hydra

The Hydra is a zoological research station located on another island about twice the size of Alcatraz Island, two miles off the island the survivors are on.
It has a section above ground on the coast and another section underwater. The Hydra facility has cages outside the station in the jungle. An underwater complex was once used as an aquarium, which housed sharks and dolphins. This underwater complex may be linked the the shark with the Dharma logo on its rear fin seen in the season 2 episode, Adrift. There is also a quarry somewhere on the Hydra island where Kate and Sawyer were forced to work in.

Station ?: The Looking Glass

The Looking Glass is an underwater station used to block all electronic communications from the island. The station is presumed to be uninhabited and flooded, but Charlie and Desmond swim to the station and it is still operational and inhabited with resident others Greta and Bonnie. The station was discovered in one of Desmond's flashbacks, where he saw Charlie swimming to a flooded, underwater hatch and turning a switch with a blinking that saved the survivors, but killed Charlie in the process. The wire found by Sayid on the beach was leading to the Looking Glass.

The station, as seen by Charlie and Desmond, consists of an open aired submarine bay and a communications station. The station has an assortment of switches and screens. The exterior of the station resembles a deep-sea submersible, with exterior lights, roll-cage like frames and large oxygen tanks. The logo of the station consists of a rabbit inside the circular Bagua design. Just before Charlie is killed by Mikhail, he jams the signal and receives a video transmissions from Penelope Widmore who informs him that she does not know Naomi, and did not send the boat she claims to be from. This is the first direct off-island communication that the survivors received, but Mikhail blew the window and the communications room filled with water and the equipment was destroyed. Jack and the survivors were able to contact Naomi's claimed rescue boat because communications were enabled as the signal was destroyed by Charlie.

As mythology on ''Lost''

Station	First seen in	First visited in (by survivors)	Last seen in	Name given in
Station 1: The Arrow	"Everybody Hates Hugo"	"The Other 48 Days"	"The Other 48 Days"	"Lockdown"
Station 3: The Swan	"All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues"	"Man of Science, Man of Faith"	"Flashes Before Your Eyes"	"Orientation"
Station 4: The Flame	"The Cost of Living"	"Enter 77"	"One of Us"	"Lockdown"
Station 5: The Pearl	"?"	"?"	"Exposé"	"Lockdown"
Station 6: The Orchid	Comic Con orientation film	N/A	Comic Con orientation film	Comic Con orientation film
Station ?: The Staff	"Maternity Leave"	"Maternity Leave"	"D.O.C."	"Lockdown"
Station ?: The Hydra	"A Tale of Two Cities"	"A Tale of Two Cities"	"Stranger in a Strange Land"	"A Tale of Two Cities"
Station ?: The Looking Glass	"Greatest Hits"	"Greatest Hits"	"Through the Looking Glass"	"Greatest Hits"

In pop culture

Besides appearing on the program ''Lost'', the Dharma Initiative has been mentioned elsewhere in fiction.

★ In the ''The Office'' episode Initiation, the character Dwight Schrute asks a fellow employee "What is the Dharma Initiative?" This is intended as a trivia question.

References

1. Lost podcast for March 20th, 2007.[1].