THE GAP

There are a few elements that most people can agree upon: the island was a magical place; it was a spiritual place; it was not of this world. The implication of those facts is that somehow (such as Thoth's magic) the main characters were diverted, taken, kidnapped or sent though time, space, or realms.

This chart explains the possibilities. In our normal life existence, a human soul would live her or his life out in a normal fashion, ending in some sort of purgatory afterlife as taught by most of the major religions. But in LOST, the normal life continuum was interrupted by the "plane crash."  The passengers on Flight 815 were diverted to a magical island in a different realm of existence.  The FDW chamber held hieroglyphs which stated there were various "Earth gates." This chamber could have been a two way teleportation device.

Why were the characters diverted into the island realm? There are a few reasons: to train for their eventual journey through the after life; to kill boredom of the gods (throughout the pantheon of Greek myths the gods came down to Earth to mess with humanity); or to experiment on human souls to determine if they were worthy of a greater purpose.

But once a person got to the island, there were only four choices. One could go back through the diversion portal back to the normal Earth time line. One could stay (or be trapped) on the island in human or spirit form. One could "die" on the island and one's soul could go through a nexus gate to the afterlife. Or, as some of the characters did (but we don't know how), they opened a new gate to create their own sideways purgatory (a purgatory within purgatory). The various realm gates appear to intersect in the afterlife, to be sorted by the White Light.

The big Gap in the flow chart of where the characters were during the series is the island itself. Many fans thought the island was connected by a wormhole which would explain the shifts in time and space. Others believed that the island was a fore-hell for lost souls to begin to sort out their acceptance of their fate of being dead. Others thought that characters were trapped in mental delusions so strong that their conscious thought they were transported to different realms.

If we go with the proposition that what happened was "real," then the passengers on Flight 815 were diverted from normal Pacific air space through an electromagnetic energy field and deposited on the island. This island looks and feels like a tropical island, but it contains supernatural elements and immortal beings so it cannot be of "our Earth."  The characters are still "alive," but must try to live in a spiritual or a world in a different universe. In order to get back to Earth, they must escape the pull of the island's power source or use it to re-open the diversion portal. Only a handful of people ever made it back to their Earth time line. The rest either went directly to the afterlife or diverted themselves to the sideways world to wait for their friends to "awaken."

The concept of awakening leads to the concept of magic: being under a spell. Illusionists can put audience members into deep sleep, hypnotize them, make them do weird things, then snap them back to reality. Did the island and/or Jacob serve the role as magician? Or was the real guardian of the souls of Jack's friends Christian? He died before the other characters so he may have been in an afterlife position to direct or re-direct his son to the promise land (as inferred by the church ending).

In any event, the characters were clearly "detoured" from their normal life's path by and through the island. The question remains about how they got from gap to gap in the time-space-reality spectrum.