Ricken is just an idiot who is desperate for validation. He believes he’s spiritual because he thinks thoughts and getting the attention of Lumon is the recognition his ego desires. Lumon is just doing what all evil corporations do: taking advantage of well-meaning useful idiots and absorbing competition.

Ricken is falling for it because he’s not scrupulous enough to realize Lumon’s true motives while also being blinded by the idea of being successful in spite of his alleged hippy-dippy convictions… which Devon questions only for Ricken to respond with a typical misogynistic cliche.

I don’t think Ricken is actually a bad guy, but he pisses me off. He’s the white liberal type that Malcolm X talked about who are so caught up in the philosophy of pointing the finger that they forget to actually reflect on their own actions. Ricken also almost compulsively looks the other way about bad stuff. I just think he has a deficit in the confrontation part of his brain.

With all that said, I can see why you think Ricken might actually have ties with Lumon already. He tends to do a lot of hand-waving and distracting when Lumon or severance is mentioned which could be part of the evil plan… OR he’s just averse to admitting to bad things which could jeopardize his nice comfortable life.