More Predictive Programming: LOST (debut 9/22/04)
The DHARMA Initiative closely resembles the NICE (National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments) from That Hideous Strength, the final volume of C.S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy. Both were scientific societies whose members lived and worked together, whose lower recruits believed their aims were purely noble and scientific and whose upper echelons seemed to have knowledge of secret matters (In Lost, the energy beneath the Orchid and Swan, in Lewis's book, the Macrobes) which they intended to exploit. Both groups did experiments on bears, which escaped captivity when the groups' activities collapsed, when purged by a group of people hostile to their aims, who defended nature and objected to scientific exploitation. The names of both societies are acronyms, which hint toward applied science.
The acronym for DHARMA is similar to DARPA, the acronym for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency which funds classified and often quite exotic research for the United States government.
DARPA >>>Facebook 2/4/04
https://lostpedia.fandom.com/wiki/DHARMA_Initiative