Mythology of Lost
The television series Lost includes a number of mysterious elements that have been ascribed to science fiction or supernatural phenomena, usually concerning coincidences, synchronicity, déjà vu, temporal and spatial anomalies, paradoxes, and other puzzling phenomena. The creators of the series refer to these as part of the mythology of the series.
The Island
As the main setting of the series, the island boasts a number of unusual properties. Its location changes at times and it cannot be reached by ordinary means. The island is surrounded by some sort of barrier which causes [|disruptions in the normal flow of time] for those who cross it. Electromagnetic phenomena are common on the island, and it seems to bestow unusual healing properties to some of its residents.Structures
The ''Black Rock''
Located deep inside the jungle is the Black Rock, a sailing ship from the mid-19th century. In "Ab Aeterno", the Black Rock set sail in 1867 and was captained by Magnus Hanso and had Richard Alpert, a Spaniard by the name of Ricardo, as a prisoner. Jacob, the protector of the island, does not deny when asked by his fraternal twin brother if he brought the ship to the island, as the two watch it approaching. Eventually, it is swept inland by a colossal rogue wave, destroying all but one foot of the coastal statue of Taweret on its way, but a mystery remains as to how the Black Rock had landed on almost the other side of the Island from where the statue of Taweret was. In "The Constant", it is explained that the Black Rock set sail from Portsmouth, England, on March 22, 1845 on a trading mission to the Kingdom of Siam, when she was tragically lost at sea. The only known artifact of this journey is the journal of the ship's First Mate, which was discovered seven years later among the artifacts of pirates on Île Sainte-Marie, Madagascar. The contents of this journal have never been made public nor known to anyone outside the family of the seller Tovard Hanso. This journal is later bought at auction by Charles Widmore.In "Exodus", John Locke mentions that this ship must have been en route to a mining colony, probably set-off from the Eastern Coast of Africa, Mozambique. The ship contains dynamite, mining equipment and several chained skeletons, which are revealed to be enslaved people carried by the ship. Dr. Leslie Arzt mentions that a tsunami could have swept it a couple miles inland as seen later in the episode. The Swan's blast door map has a revision marking "Known Final Resting Place of Magnus Hanso / Black Rock" as seen in "Live Together, Die Alone".
The cabin
The cabin was built by the Dharma Initiative mathematician Horace Goodspeed as a sort of retreat for himself and his wife. It is surrounded by a broken ash circle. While at first it is believed that Jacob resides there, it is actually the Man in Black in the cabin, falsely giving orders on behalf of Jacob. The cabin has appeared in three separate locations.The lighthouse
In "Lighthouse", Jacob instructs Hurley to take Jack to a heretofore-unseen lighthouse on the Island's coast. At the top of the lighthouse's stone tower is a set of mirrors which can rotate via a large stone dial, labeled with numbers and in some cases the names of the "candidates". Jack is able to see an image of his childhood home reflected in the mirrors when they are turned to his number, 23; whether this is due to some property of the lighthouse mirrors and structure or simply to Jacob's influence is unclear.The ruins
There are ruins on the Island, many with hieroglyphs. In "Live Together, Die Alone", while at sea, Sayid, Jin, and Sun sight the remnants of a massive statue standing upon a rock in the surf. All that is left is a large, four-toed marble foot broken off at the ankle. It has been compared to the Colossus of Rhodes. The full statue, viewed from the back, appears from a distance in the fifth-season episode "LaFleur". The statue seen from behind has lion-like ears, a crown on the head, long hair, an ankh in each hand, and ancient Egyptian dress. The statue is named Taweret, the Egyptian god of fertility and life.At the base of the statue is a secret chamber in which Jacob resides. All four elements of earth, water, fire, and air are represented in this chamber. "The fire pit in the middle of the room consisted of flames rising from black sand with a ring of water surrounding all of it." The room also housed a weaving loom in which Jacob is shown creating a tapestry. In addition, painted on the ceiling was "an ancient Egyptian astronomical chart which refers to the stars and planets, time, and the goddess Taweret."
Further ruins are revealed in "The Brig" when the Others tie Locke's father to the broken base of a large, stone column. Toward the end of the third season, Ben tells Richard to continue leading the rest of the Others to the Temple, and in "Meet Kevin Johnson" he sends Alex, Karl, and Rousseau to the same location. His map marks it with a Dharma Initiative symbol, but the Temple has also been mentioned as something the Monster is in place to protect. In addition, in "The Shape of Things to Come", after Alex is killed, Ben summons the Smoke Monster in a secret chamber hidden in his closet whose stone door contains hieroglyphics. In "There's No Place Like Home Pt 3", when Ben enters the Orchid Station, behind the official Dharma built station, he finds what appear to be ancient tombstones covered with unknown hieroglyphs on his way to the final room, where an ancient man-made wheel rests that is used to "move the island". The fifth-season episode "This Place is Death" shows a better view of what appears to be the Temple that Ben will one day order Richard to lead his people to. In this episode the temple is directly guarded by the Monster. In "Whatever Happened, Happened", Richard Alpert is seen taking a young Benjamin Linus inside the temple, as a means of healing a fatal gunshot wound. Alpert notes beforehand that Ben will emerge a fundamentally different person. It is revealed in "Dead is Dead" that the structure the viewers see is merely a wall concealing the temple and the actual temple itself is a mile away on the other side of the wall.
There is also a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the surface of the Island. The lair of the Monster lies in these tunnels, beneath the site of the Temple wall, and another chamber was used by the Others to isolate a hydrogen bomb with a breach in its casing, which lies beneath the Dharma Initiative barracks. Some of these tunnels are marked on the blast door map in the Swan Station.
In the sixth-season episode "Across the Sea", young Jacob and his unnamed fraternal twin brother are shown a cave with a waterfall; in "The End," Desmond descends into the cave and discovers an ancient chamber. In the chamber there is a pool of electromagnetic energy with a large hieroglyphic stone that sits at the center covering a mysterious hole. When it is removed by Desmond, the water and energy drain from the pool, an infernal red glow infuses the chamber, and the island begins to violently react. When Jack returns the stone, the water begins to flow into the pool again and the electromagnetic energy returns.
Health-related properties
The Island has extraordinary healing properties. The Island can heal normally untreatable conditions, such as spinal damage, cancer, and infertility. Injuries heal much faster than they normally would, though by no means are people incapable of dying. Disease is also possible, though rare. Since "the Incident", increased electromagnetic immersion caused women who conceive children on the Island to die of an auto-immune condition during the second trimester of pregnancy. They can otherwise give birth as long as conception occurs off the island or if they leave before the second trimester.Healing
Some castaways express the belief that they have been miraculously healed since the crash. Prior to his arrival, Locke was paralyzed, but he regains the use of his legs immediately after the crash. Richard Alpert says in "The Brig" that Locke's spine healing itself is not a normal event, even by the Island's standards. It is a sign of Locke being somehow "special". The effects of this specialness seem to extend to other people. After his spinal surgery, Ben is paralyzed for over a week, but regains the feeling in his legs immediately after coming into contact with Locke. He is able to walk only days later.The Others appear to operate on the assumption that cancer is impossible on the Island. Ben Linus appears deeply shocked when told he has a tumor on his spine, and Juliet notes the coincidence that Jack, a spinal surgeon, arrived on the island two days after Ben's condition was diagnosed. Similarly, Rose had been dying of cancer before crashing on the island. After the crash, she feels as if the cancer has "left her body" and, in "S.O.S.", credits her cure to the island. Jack contracts appendicitis while on the Island, which Rose observes is suspicious given that they expect their imminent rescue and the fact that she strongly believes that it is impossible to get sick on the Island.
Locke also makes a miraculously fast recovery in the episode "Through the Looking Glass", after being shot and left for dead by Ben in the episode "The Man Behind the Curtain". Locke also comments that he would have died from being shot, had the kidney Ben was aiming for not been removed earlier in his life. In the episode "Lockdown", his legs are crushed by the Swan station's blast doors. Rose teases Locke later when he is depressed about possibly being immobile, saying that he will recover sooner than he should. In "Because You Left", Locke gets shot in the leg by Ethan when he is flashed to the past. After Locke gets flashed to the present day, Richard briefly treats his wound and tells him "the island will do the rest."
Other characters like Mikhail Bakunin and Naomi also recover from injuries very fast. Shannon suffers an asthma attack and is in a panic, having lost her inhaler, until Sun recommends herbs from her garden.
In "The Variable", Daniel Faraday is shown to have suffered severe mental damage as a result of his experiments in temporal displacement, impairing his long-term memory. Charles Widmore promises Faraday that he will be healed if he goes on the freighter mission he was recruiting him for. Upon his arrival on the island, Daniel is cured of these problems, although he did suffer a temporary relapse after the death of Charlotte.