title: Jack Fox (actor)

text: In 2014 he was cast by Naji Abu Nowar in Theeb, the story of a young Bedouin boy as he experiences a greatly hastened coming-of-age, as he embarks on a perilous desert journey to guide a British officer, played by Fox, to his secret destination. The film was a roaring success gaining Naji Abu Nowar the Venice Horizon’s Award, collecting multiple accolades on the way to two BAFTA wins, and an Oscar Nomination. Film Roles in The Messenger, directed by BAFTA winning director David Blair, and Kids in Love opposite Will Poulter and Cara Delevingne followed, before returning to television to work on the Golden Globe-nominated National Geographic series Genius opposite Geoffrey Rush. Fox was then cast in Ben Elton’s Upstart Crowe opposite David Mitchell, before moving onto Working Title's Jonny English Strikes Again opposite Rowan Atkinson.


title: Jack Fox (actor)

text: In the Sumer of 2015. Fox made his West End debut at the Apollo theatre in London. The two-hander named, Dear Lupin, adapted by Michael Simkins from author Charlie Mortimer’s smash hit of the same name, was directed by Philip Franks’s. The play was a huge success gaining four star reviews from The Daily Mail and The Evening Standard.


title: Jack Fox (actor)

text: In 2019 Fox was cast in Sky Atlantic's Riviera (2019), which smashed records for their biggest debut series ever. He played Nico Eltham, a psychopathic megalomaniac, opposite Juliet Stevenson, Will Arnett, and Julia Stiles leading to him being the cover star for Rollacoaster's Autumn/Winter 2020 edition.


title: Jack Fox (actor)

text: He then moved onto Andrew Davies's ITV/Masterpiece (PBS) produced Sanditon (2020-present), in which he played manipulative and narcissistic Edward Denham, opposite Theo James and Rose Williams. in 2021, a return to comedy-drama followed, this time in a new format, eighteen ten-minute episodes, produced by Clerkenwell Films and directed by Elliot Hegarty. Cheaters would see him work with Josh Maguire, Susan Wokoma, and Callie Cooke, in this acclaimed comedy. At the start of 2022, he began production on Óskar Þór Axelsson’s Operation Napoleon, a film based on Arnaldur Indriðason best selling book of the same name. He stars alongside Iain Glenn, Wotan Wilke Möhring, and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Legislative elections were held in Israel on 1 November 2022 to elect the 120 members of the 25th Knesset. The results saw the right-wing national camp of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu achieving a parliamentary majority, amid losses for left-wing and Arab parties, as well as far-right gains.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: After the 2021 Israeli legislative election, the next elections had been scheduled for no later than 11 November 2025 according to the four-year term limit set by . The thirty-sixth government of Israel, a national unity government formed between eight political parties following those elections, held the narrowest possible majority (61 seats) in the 120-member Knesset. In April 2022, MK Idit Silman quit the governing coalition and left it without a majority.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: On 20 June 2022, following several legislative defeats for the governing coalition in the Knesset, prime minister Naftali Bennett and alternate prime minister Yair Lapid announced the introduction of a bill to dissolve the 24th Knesset, which was approved on 30 June. Simultaneously, in accordance with the rotation government agreement that was part of the 2021 coalition deal, Lapid became prime minister and leads a caretaker government until a new government takes office following the election that took place on 1 November.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Within the context of the 2019–2022 Israeli political crisis, this was the fifth legislative election in nearly four years, as no party since 2019 had been able to form a stable coalition. 40 political parties registered to run for these elections, although only twelve to fourteen parties were projected to make the 3.25% minimum to win at least one seat under Israel's closed list, proportional representation system for the Knesset's 120 seats. Ten parties ultimately succeeded in crossing the electoral threshold.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: The extended period of political deadlock that led up to the election was the result of four inconclusive elections (April 2019, September 2019, 2020, and 2021). In April and September 2019, neither incumbent Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, nor leader of the main opposition party Blue and White, Benny Gantz, was able to muster a 61-seat governing majority, leading to fresh elections. In March 2020, these resulted in the formation of a unity government, the thirty-fifth government of Israel, between Netanyahu and Gantz, which collapsed in December following a budgetary dispute, leading to another election in March 2021. The 2021 election led to the formation of another unity government, this one between eight political parties, with the leader of the Yamina party, Naftali Bennett, and the leader of Yesh Atid, Yair Lapid, becoming prime minister and Alternate Prime Minister of Israel, respectively. Bennett and Lapid agreed to rotate their positions after two years, with Lapid becoming the prime minister and Bennett becoming the alternate prime minister.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Upon the government's formation in June 2021, it held 61 seats in the Knesset; all these members of the Knesset (MK) came from coalition parties excluding Yamina's Amichai Chikli. On 6 April 2022, Yamina MK Idit Silman, resigned from the coalition, causing the governing coalition to lose its majority in the Knesset. Silman cited a decision from Minister of Health, Nitzan Horowitz, to enforce a court ruling allowing hospital visitors to enter with "chametz" (leavened bread) during Passover, which is forbidden under Jewish law, and other religion-related actions of the coalition. On 19 May, Meretz MK Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi resigned from the coalition, alleging that the government had adopted a hardline stance on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and related issues, and lowering its number of seats in the Knesset to a minority of 59. She rejoined the coalition three days later. On 7 June, she joined the opposition in voting down a bill that would have renewed the application of Israeli law in the West Bank settlements, which was set to expire in July. The bill was supported by the government. On 13 June, Yamina MK Nir Orbach left the coalition, arguing that left-wing members of the coalition were holding it hostage.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: On 20 June, Bennett and Lapid announced the introduction of a bill to dissolve the Knesset in a joint statement, stating that Lapid would become the interim prime minister following the dissolution. The dissolution of the Knesset automatically delayed the expiration date of the ordinances until 90 days after the formation of the next government. The bill to dissolve the Knesset passed its first reading on 28 June. The bill passed its third reading on 29 June and the date for elections was set for 1 November 2022. Bennett opted to retire from politics and not seek reelection; he resigned as the leader of Yamina on 29 June, and was succeeded by Ayelet Shaked.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: On 30 June, in accordance with the coalition agreement, Lapid succeeded Bennett as the caretaker prime minister.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: On 10 July, Blue and White and New Hope formed a joint list, known as Blue and White – The New Hope, excluding Derekh Eretz that ran as part of New Hope in 2021. On 14 August, the list was joined by former Israel Defense Forces's Chief of the General Staff, Gadi Eizenkot, as well as Yamina MKs Matan Kahana and Shirly Pinto, and was subsequently renamed the National Unity Party.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: On 27 July, Yamina formed a joint list with Derekh Eretz, known as Zionist Spirit. The alliance dissolved on 11 September. On 13 September, Yamina announced a joint run with The Jewish Home. that day, Derekh Eretz withdrew from the race.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: On 15 September, several minutes before the party list submission deadline, the Joint List dissolved, with Balad and Hadash–Ta'al submitting two separate lists.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: In August, Israel launched Operation Breaking Dawn, resulting in clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian groups. The operation was supported by members of the opposition, including Netanyahu, Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich, and Shas leader Aryeh Deri.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: The 120 seats in the Knesset are elected by closed list, proportional representation in a single nationwide constituency. The electoral threshold for the election is 3.25%. In the Israeli-occupied territories, only the settlers have the right to vote.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Two parties could sign a surplus vote agreement that allowed them to compete for leftover seats as if they were running together on the same list, a system known as apparentment. The Bader–Ofer method slightly favours larger lists, meaning that alliances are more likely to receive leftover seats than parties would be individually. If the alliance were to receive leftover seats, the Bader–Ofer calculation would be applied privately to determine how the seats are divided among the two allied lists.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Forty parties initially submitted lists to participate in the elections, however, one party withdrew, leaving 39 parties. Among these, were the following:


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Leadership elections were held by some parties to determine party leadership ahead of the election. Primary elections were held by some parties in advance of the national election to determine the composition of their party list.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Balad party leader Sami Abu Shehadeh gained another term as party leader in a vote held by party members on 6 August.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: The leadership primary for the Israeli Labor Party was held on 18 July, where party leader Merav Michaeli defeated party secretary general Eran Hermoni in a historic consecutive win by a party leader.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Benjamin Netanyahu did not face a challenge for the party leadership. Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, a former health minister and speaker of the Knesset, had initially stated an intent to challenge Netanyahu in 2021 but announced in late June 2022 that he would not do so. Netanyahu last faced an internal leadership challenge in 2019, when he defeated Gideon Sa'ar by a large margin; Sa'ar then left the Likud in 2020 to form New Hope. The planned leadership primary was cancelled on 19 July, as no one besides Netanyahu contested it.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Likud is one of several Israeli parties that allows its membership to determine a portion of the party's electoral list. The Likud's electoral list is composed of candidates selected by four methods: national primary elections, regional representatives (chosen from 10 regions), slots set aside for minorities, and slots filled by the party leader (Netanyahu). The primaries took place on 10 August. Contenders included Netanyahu's economic advisor Avi Simhon, far-right former MK Moshe Feiglin, and former MK Ayoob Kara. A Likud party committee moved the minority slot to a low position on the party list (No. 44), making it unlikely that the candidate selected to fill the slot would be elected. This move angered the Druze, including Likud MK Fateen Mulla, who currently fills the Likud minority seat.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Yair Golan announced on 6 July that he would run in the Meretz leadership primary and challenge incumbent Nitzan Horowitz. Horowitz announced on 12 July that he would not run in the leadership election. Former party leader Zehava Gal-On announced on 19 July that she will also run.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: The election committee of the party selected 23 August as the date for the party primary and the leadership primary. Gal-On defeated Golan, returning to her former position as Meretz leader.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: The Religious Zionist Party held its primaries digitally on 23 August. The candidate deadline was 2 August.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: This graph shows the polling trends from the 2021 Israeli legislative election until the next election day using a 4-poll moving average. Scenario polls are not included here. For parties not crossing the electoral threshold (currently 3.25%) in any given poll, the number of seats is calculated as a percentage of the 120 total seats.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: The official body administering the elections, the Central Election Committee for the 25th Knesset, released the final official results of the elections on 9 November and the chairman of the committee, Supreme Court Justice Yitzhak Amit, presented them to the President Herzog.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: The official results showed that of 6,788,804 total eligible voters, 4,794,593 cast their ballots, representing a 70.63% turnout rate. 0.62% were declared invalid or spoiled. The detailed breakdown of results is as follows:


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: With 86% of the vote counted, the right-wing bloc led by Benjamin Netanyahu, known in Israel as the national camp, was forecasted to win a majority of seats at 65, while both leftist Meretz and Balad parties were under the electoral threshold. As all the votes were counted, they remained under the threshold; far-right parties saw a surge in their vote share. In terms of votes, both blocs were neck-and-neck, with the anti-Netanyahu bloc achieving 49.5% but not gaining enough seats due to Meretz and Balad narrowly missing the electoral threshold, as 289,000 anti-Netanyahu votes went wasted in terms of seats share. Orly Ades, head of Israel's election panel Central Elections Committee, said Netanyahu's party Likud tried to undermine voting supervision, and described their actions as "something we've never seen before".


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Netanyahu's bloc went on to win 64 seats, while the coalition led by the incumbent prime minister Yair Lapid won 51 seats. In addition to Meretz and Balad, the right-wing party The Jewish Home also failed to cross the electoral threshold. The new majority has been variously described as the most right-wing government in Israeli history, as well as its most religious government.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Lapid conceded to Netanyahu, and congratulated him, wishing him luck "for the sake of the Israeli people". Netanyahu received congratulatory messages from leaders around the world, including those of Canada, France, Hungary, India, Italy, Jordan, Sudan, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and the United Kingdom, among others.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: On 15 November, the swearing-in ceremony for the newly elected members of the 25th Knesset was held during the opening session. The incoming Knesset includes 29 female lawmakers, 7 less than the last Knesset, and 28 new parliamentarians. The vote to appoint a new Speaker of the Knesset, which is usually conducted at the opening session, and the swearing in of cabinet members were postponed since ongoing coalition negotiations had not yet resulted in agreement on these positions.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: The vote to replace incumbent Knesset speaker Mickey Levy was scheduled for 13 December, after Likud and its allies secured the necessary number of signatures for it. Yariv Levin of Likud was elected as an interim speaker by 64 votes, while his opponents Merav Ben-Ari of Yesh Atid and Ayman Odeh of Hadash got 45 and five votes respectively.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: On 3 November 2022, Netanyahu told his aide Yariv Levin to begin informal coalition talks with allied parties after 97% of the vote was counted. The leader of the Shas party Aryeh Deri met with Yitzhak Goldknopf, the leader of United Torah Judaism and its Agudat Yisrael faction, on 4 November. The two parties agreed to cooperate as members of the next government. The Degel HaTorah faction of United Torah Judaism stated on 5 November that it will maintain its ideological stance about not seeking any ministerial posts as per the instruction of its spiritual leader Rabbi Gershon Edelstein but will seek other senior posts like Knesset committee chairmen and deputy ministers.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Netanyahu himself started holding talks on 6 November. He first met with Moshe Gafni, the leader of Degel HaTorah, and then with Goldknopf. Meanwhile, the Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich and the leader of its Otzma Yehudit faction Itamar Ben-Gvir pledged that they would not enter the coalition without the other faction. Gafni later met with Smotrich for coalition talks. Smotrich then met with Netanyahu. On 7 November, Netanyahu met with Ben-Gvir who demanded the Ministry of Public Security with expanded powers for himself and the Ministry of Education or Transport and Road Safety for Yitzhak Wasserlauf. A major demand among all of Netanyahu's allies was that the Knesset be allowed to ignore the rulings of the Supreme Court.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Netanyahu met with the Noam faction leader and its sole MK Avi Maoz on 8 November after he threatened to boycott the coalition. He demanded complete control of the Western Wall by the Haredi rabbinate and removal of what he considered as anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish content in schoolbooks. Israeli President Isaac Herzog began consultations with heads of all political parties on 9 November after the election results were certified. During the consultations, he expressed his reservations about Ben-Gvir becoming a member in the next government. Shas met with Likud for coalition talks on 10 November. By 11 November, Netanyahu had secured recommendations from 64 MKs, which constituted a majority. He was given the mandate to form the thirty-seventh government of Israel by President Herzog on 13 November. Otzma Yehudit and Noam officially split from Religious Zionism on 20 November as per a pre-election agreement.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Otzma Yehudit and Likud on 25 November signed a coalition agreement, under which Ben-Gvir will assume the newly created position of National Security Minister, whose powers would be more expansive than that of the Minister of Public Security, including overseeing the Israel Police and the Israel Border Police in the West Bank, as well as giving powers to authorities to shoot thieves stealing from military bases. Yitzhak Wasserlauf was given the Ministry for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee with expanded powers to regulate new West Bank settlements, while separating it from the "Periphery" portfolio, which will be given to Shas. The deal also includes giving the Ministry of Heritage to Amihai Eliyahu, separating it from the "Jerusalem Affairs" portfolio, the chairmanship of the Knesset's Public Security Committee to Zvika Fogel and that of the Special Committee for the Israeli Citizens' Fund to Limor Son Har-Melech, the post of Deputy Economic Minister to Almog Cohen, establishment of a national guard, and expansion of mobilization of reservists in the Border Police.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Netanyahu and Maoz signed a coalition agreement on 27 November, under which the latter would become a deputy minister, would head an agency on Jewish identity in the Prime Minister's Office, and would also head Nativ, which processes the aliyah from the former Soviet Union. The agency for Jewish identity would have authority over educational content taught outside the regular curriculum in schools, in addition to the department of the Ministry of Education overseeing external teaching and partnerships, which would bring nonofficial organisations permitted to teach and lecture at schools under its purview.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Likud signed a coalition agreement with the Religious Zionist Party on 1 December. Under the deal, Smotrich would serve as the Minister of Finance in rotation with Aryeh Deri, and the party will receive the post of a minister within the Ministry of Defense with control over the departments administering settlement and open lands under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, in addition to another post of a deputy minister. The deal also includes giving the post of Minister of Aliyah and Integration to Ofir Sofer, the newly created National Missions Ministry to Orit Strook, and the chairmanship of the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee to Simcha Rothman.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Likud and United Torah Judaism signed a coalition agreement on 6 December, in order to allow request for an extension to the deadline. Under it, the party would receive the Ministry of Construction and Housing, the chairmanship of the Knesset Finance Committee which will be given to Moshe Gafni, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Tradition (which would replace the Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage), in addition to several posts of deputy ministers and chairmanships of Knesset committees.


title: 2022 Israeli legislative election

text: Likud also signed a deal with Shas by 8 December, securing interim coalition agreements with all of their allies. Under the deal, Deri will first serve as the Minister of Interior and Health, before rotating posts with Smotrich after two years. The party will also receive the Ministry of Religious Services and Welfare Ministries, as well as posts of deputy ministers in the Ministry of Education and Interior. Netanyahu asked Herzog for a 14-day extension after the agreement in order to finalise the roles his allied parties would play. Herzog on the following day extended the deadline to 21 December.


title: Maya (religion)

text: Maya (; Devanagari: , IAST: ), literally "illusion" or "magic", has multiple meanings in Indian philosophies depending on the context. In later Vedic texts, connotes a "magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not what they seem"; the principle which shows "attributeless Absolute" as having "attributes". also connotes that which "is constantly changing and thus is spiritually unreal" (in opposition to an unchanging Absolute, or Brahman), and therefore "conceals the true character of spiritual reality".


title: Maya (religion)

text: In the Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy, , "appearance", is "the powerful force that creates the cosmic illusion that the phenomenal world is real." In this nondualist school, at the individual level appears as the lack of knowledge () of the real Self, "Atman-Brahman", mistakingly identifying with the body-mind complex and its entanglements.


title: Maya (religion)

text: In Hinduism, is also an epithet for goddess Lakshmi, and the name of a manifestation of Lakshmi, the goddess of "wealth, prosperity and love".


title: Maya (religion)

text: In Buddhist philosophy, is invoked as one of twenty subsidiary unwholesome mental factors, responsible for deceit or concealment about the nature of things. Maya is also the name of Gautama Buddha's mother.


title: Maya (religion)

text: "Māyā" (Sanskrit: ), a word with unclear etymology, probably comes from the root "mā" which means "to measure".


title: Maya (religion)

text: According to Monier Williams, "māyā" meant "wisdom and extraordinary power" in an earlier older language, but from the Vedic period onwards, the word came to mean "illusion, unreality, deception, fraud, trick, sorcery, witchcraft and magic". However, P. D. Shastri states that the Monier Williams' list is a "loose definition, misleading generalization", and not accurate in interpreting ancient Vedic and medieval era Sanskrit texts; instead, he suggests a more accurate meaning of "māyā" is "appearance, not mere illusion".


title: Maya (religion)

text: According to William Mahony, the root of the word may be "man-" or "to think", implying the role of imagination in the creation of the world. In early Vedic usage, the term implies, states Mahony, "the wondrous and mysterious power to turn an idea into a physical reality".


title: Maya (religion)

text: Franklin Southworth states the word's origin is uncertain, and other possible roots of "māyā" include "may-" meaning mystify, confuse, intoxicate, delude, as well as "māy-" which means "disappear, be lost".


title: Maya (religion)

text: Jan Gonda considers the word related to "mā", which means "mother", as do Tracy Pintchman and Adrian Snodgrass, serving as an epithet for goddesses such as Lakshmi. Maya here implies art, is the maker's power, writes Zimmer, "a mother in all three worlds", a creatrix, her magic is the activity in the Will-spirit.


title: Maya (religion)

text: Words related to and containing "Māyā", such as "Mayava", occur many times in the Vedas. These words have various meanings, with interpretations that are contested, and some are names of deities that do not appear in texts of 1st millennium BCE and later. The use of word Māyā in Rig Veda, in the later era context of "magic, illusion, power", occurs in many hymns. One titled Māyā-bheda (मायाभेद:, Discerning Illusion) includes hymns 10.177.1 through 10.177.3, as the battle unfolds between the good and the evil, as follows,


title: Maya (religion)

text: The above Maya-bheda hymn discerns, using symbolic language, a contrast between mind influenced by light (sun) and magic (illusion of Asura). The hymn is a call to discern one's enemies, perceive artifice, and distinguish, using one's mind, between that which is perceived and that which is unperceived. Rig Veda does not connote the word Māyā as always good or always bad, it is simply a form of technique, mental power and means. Rig Veda uses the word in two contexts, implying that there are two kinds of Māyā: divine Māyā and undivine Māyā, the former being the foundation of truth, the latter of falsehood.


title: Maya (religion)

text: Elsewhere in Vedic mythology, Indra uses Maya to conquer Vritra. Varuna's supernatural power is called Maya. "Māyā", in such examples, connotes powerful magic, which both "devas" (gods) and "asuras" (demons) use against each other. In the Yajurveda, "māyā" is an unfathomable plan. In the Aitareya Brahmana Maya is also referred to as Dirghajihvi, hostile to gods and sacrifices. The hymns in Book 8, Chapter 10 of Atharvaveda describe the primordial woman "Virāj" (, chief queen) and how she willingly gave the knowledge of food, plants, agriculture, husbandry, water, prayer, knowledge, strength, inspiration, concealment, charm, virtue, vice to gods, demons, men and living creatures, despite all of them making her life miserable. In hymns of 8.10.22, "Virāj" is used by Asuras (demons) who call her as Māyā, as follows,


title: Maya (religion)

text: The contextual meaning of Maya in Atharva Veda is "power of creation", not illusion. Gonda suggests the central meaning of Maya in Vedic literature is, "wisdom and power enabling its possessor, or being able itself, to create, devise, contrive, effect, or do something". Maya stands for anything that has real, material form, human or non-human, but that does not reveal the hidden principles and implicit knowledge that creates it. An illustrative example of this in Rig Veda VII.104.24 and Atharva Veda VIII.4.24 where Indra is invoked against the Maya of sorcerers appearing in the illusory form – like a "fata morgana" – of animals to trick a person.


title: Maya (religion)

text: The Upanishads describe the universe, and the human experience, as an interplay of Purusha (the eternal, unchanging principles, consciousness) and Prakṛti (the temporary, changing material world, nature). The former manifests itself as Ātman (Soul, Self), and the latter as Māyā. The Upanishads refer to the knowledge of Atman as "true knowledge" ("Vidya"), and the knowledge of Maya as "not true knowledge" ("Avidya", Nescience, lack of awareness, lack of true knowledge). Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, states Ben-Ami Scharfstein, describes Maya as "the tendency to imagine something where it does not exist, for example, atman with the body". To the Upanishads, knowledge includes empirical knowledge and spiritual knowledge, complete knowing necessarily includes understanding the hidden principles that work, the realization of the soul of things.


title: Maya (religion)

text: Hendrick Vroom explains, "The term "Maya" has been translated as 'illusion,' but then it does not concern normal illusion. Here 'illusion' does not mean that the world is not real and simply a figment of the human imagination. "Maya" means that the world is not as it seems; the world that one experiences is misleading as far as its true nature is concerned." Lynn Foulston states, "The world is both real and unreal because it exists but is 'not what it appears to be'." According to Wendy Doniger, "to say that the universe is an illusion (māyā) is not to say that it is unreal; it is to say, instead, that it is not what it seems to be, that it is something constantly being made. Māyā not only deceives people about the things they think they know; more basically, it limits their knowledge."


title: Maya (religion)

text: Māyā pre-exists and co-exists with Brahman – the Ultimate Principle, Consciousness. Maya is perceived reality, one that does not reveal the hidden principles, the true reality. Maya is unconscious, Atman is conscious. Maya is the literal, Brahman is the figurative "Upādāna" – the principle, the cause. Maya is born, changes, evolves, dies with time, from circumstances, due to invisible principles of nature, state the Upanishads. Atman-Brahman is eternal, unchanging, invisible principle, unaffected absolute and resplendent consciousness. Maya concept in the Upanishads, states Archibald Gough, is "the indifferent aggregate of all the possibilities of emanatory or derived existences, pre-existing with Brahman", just like the possibility of a future tree pre-exists in the seed of the tree.


title: Maya (religion)

text: The concept of Maya appears in numerous Upanishads. The verses 4.9 to 4.10 of Svetasvatara Upanishad, is the oldest explicit occurrence of the idea that Brahman (Supreme Soul) is the hidden reality, nature is magic, Brahman is the magician, human beings are infatuated with the magic and thus they create bondage to illusions and delusions, and for freedom and liberation one must seek true insights and correct knowledge of the principles behind the hidden magic. Gaudapada in his Karika on Mandukya Upanishad explains the interplay of Atman and Maya as follows,


title: Maya (religion)

text: Sarvasara Upanishad refers to two concepts: "Mithya" and "Maya". It defines "Mithya" as illusion and calls it one of three kinds of substances, along with Sat (Be-ness, True) and Asat (not-Be-ness, False). "Maya", Sarvasara Upanishad defines as all what is not Atman. Maya has no beginning, but has an end. Maya, declares Sarvasara, is anything that can be studied and subjected to proof and disproof, anything with Guṇas. In the human search for Self-knowledge, Maya is that which obscures, confuses and distracts an individual.


title: Maya (religion)

text: In Puranas and Vaishnava theology, "māyā" is described as one of the nine shaktis of Vishnu. "Māyā" became associated with sleep; and Vishnu's "māyā" is sleep which envelopes the world when he awakes to destroy evil. Vishnu, like Indra, is the master of "māyā"; and "māyā" envelopes Vishnu's body. The "Bhagavata Purana" narrates that the sage Markandeya requests Vishnu to experience his "māyā". Vishnu appears as an infant floating on a fig leaf in a deluge and then swallows the sage, the sole survivor of the cosmic flood. The sage sees various worlds of the universe, gods etc. and his own hermitage in the infant's belly. Then the infant breathes out the sage, who tries to embrace the infant, but everything disappears and the sage realizes that he was in his hermitage the whole time and was given a flavor of Vishnu's "māyā". The magic creative power, "Māyā" was always a monopoly of the central Solar God; and was also associated with the early solar prototype of Vishnu in the early Aditya phase.


title: Maya (religion)

text: The basic grammar of the third and final Tamil Sangam is "Tholkappiyam" composed by "Tholkappiyar", who according to critics is referred as Rishi Jamadagni's brother "Sthiranadumagni" and uncle of Parshurama. He categorically uses a Prakrit (Tamil:Pagatham) Tadbhava "Mayakkam", which is the root of the word Maya(m). He says that the entire creation is a blurred flow between State of matter or "Pancha Bhutas". This concept of Maya is of the school of Agastya, who was the first Tamil grammarian and the guru of Tholkappiyar.


title: Maya (religion)

text: In Sangam period Tamil literature, Krishna is found as "māyon"; with other attributed names are such as Mal, Tirumal, Perumal and Mayavan. In the Tamil classics, Durga is referred to by the feminine form of the word, viz., "māyol"; wherein she is endowed with unlimited creative energy and the great powers of Vishnu, and is hence "Vishnu-Maya".


title: Maya (religion)

text: Maya, to Shaiva Siddhanta sub-school of Hinduism, states Hilko Schomerus, is reality and truly existent, and one that exists to "provide Souls with "Bhuvana" (a world), "Bhoga" (objects of enjoyment), "Tanu" (a body) and "Karana" (organs)".


title: Maya (religion)

text: The various schools of Hinduism, particularly those based on naturalism (Vaiśeṣika), rationalism (Samkhya) or ritualism (Mimamsa), questioned and debated what is Maya, and the need to understand Maya. The Vedanta and Yoga schools explained that complete realization of knowledge requires both the understanding of ignorance, doubts and errors, as well as the understanding of invisible principles, incorporeal and the eternal truths. In matters of Self-knowledge, stated Shankara in his commentary on Taittiriya Upanishad, one is faced with the question, "Who is it that is trying to know, and how does he attain Brahman?" It is absurd, states Shankara, to speak of one becoming himself; because "Thou Art That" already. Realizing and removing ignorance is a necessary step, and this can only come from understanding Maya and then looking beyond it.


title: Maya (religion)

text: The need to understand Maya is like the metaphorical need for road. Only when the country to be reached is distant, states Shankara, that a road must be pointed out. It is a meaningless contradiction to assert, "I am right now in my village, but I need a road to reach my village." It is the confusion, ignorance and illusions that need to be repealed. It is only when the knower sees nothing else but his Self that he can be fearless and permanent. Vivekananda explains the need to understand Maya as follows (abridged),


title: Maya (religion)

text: The early works of Samkhya, the rationalist school of Hinduism, do not identify or directly mention the Maya doctrine. The discussion of Maya theory, calling it into question, appears after the theory gains ground in Vedanta school of Hinduism. Vācaspati Miśra's commentary on the "Samkhyakarika", for example, questions the Maya doctrine saying "It is not possible to say that the notion of the phenomenal world being real is false, for there is no evidence to contradict it". Samkhya school steadfastly retained its duality concept of Prakrti and Purusha, both real and distinct, with some texts equating Prakrti to be Maya that is "not illusion, but real", with three Guṇas in different proportions whose changing state of equilibrium defines the perceived reality.


title: Maya (religion)

text: James Ballantyne, in 1885, commented on Kapila's Sánkhya aphorism 5.72 which he translated as, "everything except nature and soul is uneternal". According to Ballantyne, this aphorism states that the mind, ether, etc. in a state of cause (not developed into a product) are called Nature and not Intellect. He adds, that scriptural texts such as Shvetashvatara Upanishad to be stating "He should know Illusion to be Nature and him in whom is Illusion to be the great Lord and the world to be pervaded by portions of him'; since Soul and Nature are also made up of parts, they must be uneternal". However, acknowledges Ballantyne, Edward Gough translates the same verse in Shvetashvatara Upanishad differently, 'Let the sage know that Prakriti is Maya and that Mahesvara is the Mayin, or arch-illusionist. All this shifting world is filled with portions of him'. In continuation of the Samkhya and Upanishadic view, in the Bhagavata philosophy, Maya has been described as 'that which appears even when there is no object like silver in a shell and which does not appear in the atman'; with maya described as the power that creates, maintains and destroys the universe.


title: Maya (religion)

text: The realism-driven Nyaya school of Hinduism denied that either the world (Prakrti) or the soul (Purusa) are an illusion. Naiyayikas developed theories of illusion, typically using the term "Mithya", and stated that illusion is simply flawed cognition, incomplete cognition or the absence of cognition. There is no deception in the reality of Prakrti or "Pradhana" (creative principle of matter/nature) or Purusa, only confusion or lack of comprehension or lack of cognitive effort, according to Nyaya scholars. To them, illusion has a cause, that rules of reason and proper "Pramanas" (epistemology) can uncover.


title: Maya (religion)

text: Illusion, stated Naiyayikas, involves the projection into current cognition of predicated content from memory (a form of rushing to interpret, judge, conclude). This "projection illusion" is misplaced, and stereotypes something to be what it is not. The insights on theory of illusion by Nyaya scholars were later adopted and applied by Advaita Vedanta scholars.


title: Maya (religion)

text: Maya in Yoga school is the manifested world and implies divine force. Yoga and Maya are two sides of the same coin, states Zimmer, because what is referred to as Maya by living beings who are enveloped by it, is Yoga for the Brahman (Universal Principle, Supreme Soul) whose yogic perfection creates the Maya. Maya is neither illusion nor denial of perceived reality to the Yoga scholars, rather Yoga is a means to perfect the "creative discipline of mind" and "body-mind force" to transform Maya.


title: Maya (religion)

text: The concept of Yoga as power to create Maya has been adopted as a compound word "Yogamaya" (योगमाया) by the theistic sub-schools of Hinduism. It occurs in various mythologies of the Puranas; for example, Shiva uses his "yogamāyā" to transform Markendeya's heart in Bhagavata Purana's chapter 12.10, while Krishna counsels Arjuna about "yogamāyā" in hymn 7.25 of Bhagavad Gita.


title: Maya (religion)

text: Maya is a prominent and commonly referred to concept in Vedanta philosophies. Maya is often translated as "illusion", in the sense of "appearance". The human mind constructs a subjective experience, states the Vedanta school, which leads to the peril of misunderstanding Maya as well as interpreting Maya as the only and final reality. Vedantins assert the "perceived world including people are not what they appear to be". There are invisible principles and laws at work, true invisible nature in others and objects, and invisible soul that one never perceives directly, but this invisible reality of Self and Soul exists, assert Vedanta scholars. Māyā is that which manifests, perpetuates a sense of false duality (or divisional plurality). This manifestation is real, but it obfuscates and eludes the hidden principles and true nature of reality. The Vedanta school holds that liberation is the unfettered realization and understanding of these invisible principles: the Self (Soul) in oneself is same as the Self in another and the Self in everything (Brahman). The difference within various sub-schools of Vedanta is the relationship between individual soul and cosmic soul (Brahman). Non-theistic Advaita sub-school holds that both are One, everyone is thus deeply connected Oneness and there is God in everyone and everything; while theistic Dvaita and other sub-schools hold that individual souls and God's soul are distinct and each person can at best love God constantly to get one's soul infinitely close to His Soul.


title: Maya (religion)

text: In Advaita Vedanta philosophy, there are two realities: "Vyavaharika" (empirical reality) and "Paramarthika" (absolute, spiritual reality). Māyā is the empirical reality that entangles consciousness. Māyā has the power to create a bondage to the empirical world, preventing the unveiling of the true, unitary Self – the Cosmic Spirit also known as Brahman. The theory of māyā was developed by the ninth-century Advaita Hindu philosopher Adi Shankara. However, competing theistic Dvaita scholars contested Shankara's theory, and stated that Shankara did not offer a theory of the relationship between Brahman and Māyā. A later Advaita scholar Prakasatman addressed this, by explaining, "Maya and Brahman together constitute the entire universe, just like two kinds of interwoven threads create a fabric. Maya is the manifestation of the world, whereas Brahman, which supports Maya, is the cause of the world."


title: Maya (religion)

text: Māyā is a fact in that it is the appearance of phenomena. Since Brahman is the sole metaphysical truth, Māyā is true in epistemological and empirical sense; however, Māyā is not the metaphysical and spiritual truth. The spiritual truth is the truth forever, while what is empirical truth is only true for now. Since Māyā is the perceived material world, it is true in perception context, but is "untrue" in spiritual context of Brahman. Māyā is not false, it only clouds the inner Self and principles that are real. True Reality includes both "Vyavaharika" (empirical) and "Paramarthika" (spiritual), the Māyā and the Brahman. The goal of spiritual enlightenment, state Advaitins, is to realize Brahman, realize the fearless, resplendent Oneness.


title: Maya (religion)

text: Vivekananda said: "When the Hindu says the world is Maya, at once people get the idea that the world is an illusion. This interpretation has some basis, as coming through the Buddhistic philosophers, because there was one section of philosophers who did not believe in the external world at all. But the Maya of the Vedanta, in its last developed form, is neither Idealism nor Realism, nor is it a theory. It is a simple statement of facts – what we are and what we see around us."


title: Maya (religion)

text: Māyā (Sanskrit; Tibetan wyl.: "sgyu") is a Buddhist term translated as "pretense" or "deceit" that is identified as one of the twenty subsidiary unwholesome mental factors within the Mahayana Abhidharma teachings. In this context, it is defined as pretending to exhibit or claiming to have a good quality that one lacks.


title: Maya (religion)

text: What is deceit? It is a display of what is not a real quality and is associated with both passion-lust (raga) and bewilderment-erring (moha) by being overly attached to wealth and honor. Its function is to provide a basis for a perverse life-style.


title: Maya (religion)

text: Pretension (sgyu) is in the categories of longing desire (raga) and naivety (moha). Because of excessive attachment to our material gain and the respect we receive, and activated by wanting to deceive others, pretension is pretending to exhibit or claiming to have a good quality that we lack.


title: Maya (religion)

text: The Early Buddhist Texts contain some references to illusion, the most well known of which is the "Pheṇapiṇḍūpama Sutta" in Pali (and with a Chinese Agama parallel at SĀ 265) which states:


title: Maya (religion)

text: Suppose, monks, that a magician (māyākāro) or a magician’s apprentice (māyākārantevāsī) would display a magical illusion (māyaṃ) at a crossroads. A man with good sight would inspect it, ponder, and carefully investigate it, and it would appear to him to be void (rittaka), hollow (tucchaka), coreless (asāraka). For what core (sāro) could there be in a magical illusion (māyāya)? So too, monks, whatever kind of cognition there is, whether past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near: a monk inspects it, ponders it, and carefully investigates it, and it would appear to him to be void (rittaka), hollow (tucchaka), coreless (asāraka). For what core (sāro) could there be in cognition?


title: Maya (religion)

text: One sutra in the Āgama collection known as "Mahāsūtras" of the (Mūla)Sarvāstivādin tradition entitled the "Māyājāla" (Net of Illusion) deals especially with the theme of Maya. This sutra only survives in Tibetan translation and compares the five aggregates with further metaphors for illusion, including: an echo, a reflection in a mirror, a mirage, sense pleasures in a dream and a madman wandering naked.


title: Maya (religion)

text: These texts give the impression that māyā refers to the insubstantial and essence-less nature of things as well as their deceptive, false and vain character.


title: Maya (religion)

text: The Salistamba Sutra also puts much emphasis on illusion, describing all dharmas as being “characterized as illusory” and “vain, hollow, without core”. Likewise the Mahāvastu, a highly influential Mahāsāṃghikan text on the life of the Buddha, states that the Buddha “has shown that the aggregates are like a lightning flash, as a bubble, or as the white foam on a wave.”


title: Maya (religion)

text: In Theravada Buddhism 'Māyā' is the name of the mother of the Buddha as well as a metaphor for the consciousness aggregate ("viññana"). The Theravada monk Bhikkhu Bodhi considers the Pali "Pheṇapiṇḍūpama Sutta" “one of the most radical discourses on the empty nature of conditioned phenomena.” Bodhi also cites the Pali commentary on this sutra, the "Sāratthappakāsinī" (Spk), which states:


title: Maya (religion)

text: Cognition is like a magical illusion (māyā) in the sense that it is insubstantial and cannot be grasped. Cognition is even more transient and fleeting than a magical illusion. For it gives the impression that a person comes and goes, stands and sits, with the same mind, but the mind is different in each of these activities. Cognition deceives the multitude like a magical illusion (māyā).


title: Maya (religion)

text: Likewise, Bhikkhu Katukurunde Nyanananda Thera has written an exposition of the "Kàlakàràma Sutta" which features the image of a magical illusion as its central metaphor.


title: Maya (religion)

text: The "Nyānānusāra Śāstra", a Vaibhāṣika response to Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakosha cites the "Māyājāla sutra" and explains:


title: Maya (religion)

text: “Seeing an illusory object (māyā)”: Although what one apprehends is unreal, nothing more than an illusory sign. If one does not admit this much, then an illusory sign should be non-existent. What is an illusory sign? It is the result of illusion magic. Just as one with higher gnosis can magically create forms, likewise this illusory sign does actually have manifestation and shape. Being produced by illusion magic, it acts as the object of vision. That object which is taken as really existent is in fact ultimately non-existent. Therefore, this [Māyājāla] Sūtra states that it is non-existent, due to the illusory object there is a sign but not substantiality. Being able to beguile and deceive one, it is known as a “deceiver of the eye.”


title: Maya (religion)

text: In Mahayana sutras, illusion is an important theme of the Prajñāpāramitā sutras. Here, the magician's illusion exemplifies how people misunderstand and misperceive reality, which is in fact empty of any essence and cannot be grasped. The Mahayana uses similar metaphors for illusion: magic, a dream, a bubble, a rainbow, lightning, the moon reflected in water, a mirage, and a city of celestial musicians." Understanding that what we experience is less substantial than we believe is intended to serve the purpose of liberation from ignorance, fear, and clinging and the attainment of enlightenment as a Buddha completely dedicated to the welfare of all beings. The Prajñaparamita texts also state that all dharmas (phenomena) are like an illusion, not just the five aggregates, but all beings, including Bodhisattvas and even Nirvana. The "Prajñaparamita-ratnaguna-samcayagatha" (Rgs) states:


title: Maya (religion)

text: According to Ven. Dr. Huifeng, what this means is that Bodhisattvas see through all conceptualizations and conceptions, for they are deceptive and illusory, and sever or cut off all these cognitive creations.


title: Maya (religion)

text: Depending on the stage of the practitioner, the magical illusion is experienced differently. In the ordinary state, we get attached to our own mental phenomena, believing they are real, like the audience at a magic show gets attached to the illusion of a beautiful lady. At the next level, called actual relative truth, the beautiful lady appears, but the magician does not get attached. Lastly, at the ultimate level, the Buddha is not affected one way or the other by the illusion. Beyond conceptuality, the Buddha is neither attached nor non-attached. This is the middle way of Buddhism, which explicitly refutes the extremes of both eternalism and nihilism.


title: Maya (religion)

text: Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka philosophy discusses "nirmita", or illusion closely related to māyā. In this example, the illusion is a self-awareness that is, like the magical illusion, mistaken. For Nagarjuna, the self is not the organizing command center of experience, as we might think. Actually, it is just one element combined with other factors and strung together in a sequence of causally connected moments in time. As such, the self is not substantially real, but neither can it be shown to be unreal. The continuum of moments, which we mistakenly understand to be a solid, unchanging self, still performs actions and undergoes their results. "As a magician creates a magical illusion by the force of magic, and the illusion produces another illusion, in the same way the agent is a magical illusion and the action done is the illusion created by another illusion." What we experience may be an illusion, but we are living inside the illusion and bear the fruits of our actions there. We undergo the experiences of the illusion. What we do affects what we experience, so it matters. In this example, Nagarjuna uses the magician's illusion to show that the self is not as real as it thinks, yet, to the extent it is inside the illusion, real enough to warrant respecting the ways of the world.


title: Maya (religion)

text: For the Mahayana Buddhist, the self is māyā like a magic show and so are objects in the world. Vasubandhu's "Trisvabhavanirdesa", a Mahayana Yogacara "Mind Only" text, discusses the example of the magician who makes a piece of wood appear as an elephant. The audience is looking at a piece of wood but, under the spell of magic, perceives an elephant instead. Instead of believing in the reality of the illusory elephant, we are invited to recognize that multiple factors are involved in creating that perception, including our involvement in dualistic subjectivity, causes and conditions, and the ultimate beyond duality. Recognizing how these factors combine to create what we perceive ordinarily, ultimate reality appears. Perceiving that the elephant is illusory is akin to seeing through the magical illusion, which reveals the dharmadhatu, or ground of being.


title: Maya (religion)

text: Buddhist Tantra, a further development of the Mahayana, also makes use of the magician's illusion example in yet another way. In the completion stage of Buddhist Tantra, the practitioner takes on the form of a deity in an illusory body (māyādeha), which is like the magician's illusion. It is made of wind, or prana, and is called illusory because it appears only to other yogis who have also attained the illusory body. The illusory body has the markings and signs of a Buddha. There is an impure and a pure illusory body, depending on the stage of the yogi's practice.


title: Maya (religion)

text: In the Dzogchen tradition the "perceived reality" is considered literally unreal, in that objects which make-up perceived reality are known as objects within one's mind, and that, "as we conceive them", there is no pre-determined object, or assembly of objects in isolation from experience that may be considered the "true" object, or objects. As a prominent contemporary teacher puts it: "In a real sense, all the visions that we see in our lifetime are like a big dream [...]". In this context, the term "visions" denotes not only visual perceptions, but appearances perceived through all senses, including sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations.


title: Maya (religion)

text: Different schools and traditions in Tibetan Buddhism give different explanations of the mechanism producing the illusion usually called "reality".


title: Maya (religion)

text: Even the illusory nature of apparent phenomena is itself an illusion. Ultimately, the yogi passes beyond a conception of things either existing or not existing, and beyond a conception of either samsara or nirvana. Only then is the yogi abiding in the ultimate reality.


title: Maya (religion)

text: "Maya", in Jainism, means appearances or deceit that prevents one from "Samyaktva" (right belief). Maya is one of three causes of failure to reach right belief. The other two are "Mithyatva" (false belief) and "Nidana" (hankering after fame and worldly pleasures).


title: Maya (religion)

text: "Maya" is a closely related concept to "Mithyatva", with Maya a source of wrong information while Mithyatva an individual's attitude to knowledge, with relational overlap.


title: Maya (religion)

text: Svetambara Jains classify categories of false belief under "Mithyatva" into five: "Abhigrahika" (false belief that is limited to one's own scriptures that one can defend, but refusing to study and analyze other scriptures); "Anabhigrahika" (false belief that equal respect must be shown to all gods, teachers, scriptures); "Abhiniviseka" (false belief resulting from pre-conceptions with a lack of discernment and refusal to do so); "Samsayika" (state of hesitation or uncertainty between various conflicting, inconsistent beliefs); and "Anabhogika" (innate, default false beliefs that a person has not thought through on one's own).


title: Maya (religion)

text: Digambara Jains classify categories of false belief under "Mithyatva" into seven: "Ekantika" (absolute, one sided false belief), "Samsayika" (uncertainty, doubt whether a course is right or wrong, unsettled belief, skepticism), "Vainayika" (false belief that all gods, gurus and scriptures are alike, without critical examination), "Grhita" (false belief derived purely from habits or default, no self-analysis), "Viparita" (false belief that true is false, false is true, everything is relative or acceptable), "Naisargika" (false belief that all living beings are devoid of consciousness and cannot discern right from wrong), "Mudha-drsti" (false belief that violence and anger can tarnish or damage thoughts, divine, guru or dharma).


title: Maya (religion)

text: "Māyā" (deceit) is also considered one of four "Kaṣaya" (faulty passion, a trigger for actions) in Jain philosophy. The other three are "Krodha" (anger), "Māna" (pride) and "Lobha" (greed). The ancient Jain texts recommend that one must subdue these four faults, as they are source of bondage, attachment and non-spiritual passions.


title: Maya (religion)

text: In Sikhism, the world is regarded as both transitory and relatively real. God is viewed as the only reality, but within God exist both conscious souls and nonconscious objects; these created objects are also real. Natural phenomena are real but the effects they generate are unreal. māyā is as the events are real yet māyā (Gurmukhi: ਮਾਇਆ) is not as the effects are unreal. Sikhism believes that people are trapped in the world because of five vices: lust, anger, greed, attachment, and ego. Maya enables these five vices and makes a person think the physical world is "real," whereas, the goal of Sikhism is to rid the self of them. Consider the following example: In the moonless night, a rope lying on the ground may be mistaken for a snake. We know that the rope alone is real, not the snake. However, the failure to perceive the rope gives rise to the false perception of the snake. Once the darkness is removed, the rope alone remains; the snake disappears.


title: Maya (religion)

text: In some mythologies the symbol of the snake was associated with money, and māyā in modern Punjabi refers to money. However, in the Guru Granth Sahib māyā refers to the "grand illusion" of materialism. From this māyā all other evils are born, but by understanding the nature of māyā a person begins to approach spirituality.


title: Maya (religion)

text: The teachings of the Sikh Gurus push the idea of sewa (selfless service) and simran (prayer, meditation, or remembering one's true death). The depths of these two concepts and the core of Sikhism comes from sangat (congregation): by joining the congregation of true saints one is saved. By contrast, most people are believed to suffer from the false consciousness of materialism, as described in the following extracts from the Guru Granth Sahib:


title: Lilith in popular culture

text: Lilith, a biblical character suggested to be Adam's first wife and a significant female figure from Jewish mythology, has been developed over time into distinct characters in popular culture. One writer on witches, Judika Illes, wrote, "No spirit exerts more fascination over media and popular culture than Lilith. Her appearances are genuinely too numerous to count." Lilith is one of several figures with biblical or related origins integrated into popular culture who have been titled demon.


title: Lilith in popular culture

text: See the disambiguation page for characters merely named Lilith, such as Lilith Sternin in "Cheers" and "Frasier".


title: Debt-to-GDP ratio

text: In economics, the debt-to-GDP ratio is the ratio between a country's government debt (measured in units of currency) and its gross domestic product (GDP) (measured in units of currency per year). While it is a "ratio", it is technically measured in units of year, and can be interpreted as the number of years a country needs to pay off its entire debt, if all its GDP is devoted towards it. A low debt-to-GDP ratio indicates that an economy produces goods and services sufficient to pay back debts without incurring further debt. Geopolitical and economic considerations – including interest rates, war, recessions, and other variables – influence the borrowing practices of a nation and the choice to incur further debt.


title: Debt-to-GDP ratio

text: It should not be confused with a deficit-to-GDP ratio, which, for countries running budget deficits, measures a country's annual net fiscal loss in a given year (total expenditures minus total revenue, or the net change in debt per annum) as a percentage share of that country's GDP; for countries running budget surpluses, a "surplus-to-GDP ratio" measures a country's annual net fiscal "gain" as a share of that country's GDP.


title: Debt-to-GDP ratio

text: Particularly in macroeconomics, various debt-to-GDP ratios can be calculated. The most commonly used ratio is the government debt divided by the gross domestic product (GDP), which reflects the government's finances, while another common ratio is the total debt to GDP, which reflects the finances of the nation as a whole.


title: Debt-to-GDP ratio

text: The change in debt-to-GDP is approximately "net change in debt as percentage of GDP"; for government debt, this is deficit or (surplus) as percentage of GDP.


title: Debt-to-GDP ratio

text: This is only approximate as GDP changes from year to year, but generally, year-on-year GDP changes are small (say, 3%), and thus this is approximately correct.


title: Debt-to-GDP ratio

text: However, in the presence of significant inflation, or particularly hyperinflation, GDP may increase rapidly in nominal terms; if debt is nominal, then its ratio to GDP will decrease rapidly. A period of deflation would have the opposite effect.


title: Debt-to-GDP ratio

text: A government's debt-to-GDP ratio can be analysed by looking at how it changes or, in other words, how the debt is evolving over time:


title: Debt-to-GDP ratio

text: The left hand side of the equation demonstrates the dynamics of the government's debt. formula_2 is the debt-to-GDP at the end of the period , and formula_3 is the debt-to-GDP ratio at the end of the previous period (−1). Hence, the left side of the equation shows the "change" in the debt-to-GDP ratio. The right hand side of the equation shows the causes of the government's debt. formula_4 is the interest payments on the stock of debt as a ratio of GDP so far, and formula_5 shows the primary deficit-to-GDP ratio.


title: Debt-to-GDP ratio

text: If the government has the ability to print money, and therefore monetize the outstanding debt, the budget constraint becomes:


title: Debt-to-GDP ratio

text: The term formula_7 is the change in money balances (i.e. money growth). By printing money the government is able to increase nominal money balances to pay off the debt (consequently acting in the debt way that debt financing does, in order to balance the government's expenditures). However, the effect that an increase in nominal money balances has on seignorage is ambiguous, as while it increases the amount of money within the economy, the real value of each unit of money decreases due to inflationary effects. This inflationary effect from money printing is called an inflation tax.


title: Debt-to-GDP ratio

text: The World Bank and the IMF hold that "a country can be said to achieve external debt sustainability if it can meet its current and future external debt service obligations in full, without recourse to debt rescheduling or the accumulation of arrears and without compromising growth". According to these two institutions, external debt sustainability can be obtained by a country "by bringing the net present value (NPV) of external public debt down to about 150 percent of a country's exports or 250 percent of a country's revenues". High external debt is believed to have harmful effects on an economy. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 17, an integral part of the 2030 Agenda has a target to address the external debt of highly indebted poor countries to reduce debt distress.


title: Debt-to-GDP ratio

text: In 2013 Herndon, Ash, and Pollin reviewed an influential, widely cited research paper entitled, "Growth in a Time of Debt", by two Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. Herndon, Ash and Pollin argued that "coding errors, selective exclusion of available data, and unconventional weighting of summary statistics lead to serious errors that inaccurately represent the relationship between public debt and GDP growth among 20 advanced economies in the post-war period". Correcting these basic computational errors undermined the central claim of the book that too much debt causes recession. Rogoff and Reinhardt claimed that their fundamental conclusions were accurate, despite the errors.


title: Debt-to-GDP ratio

text: There is a difference between external debt denominated in domestic currency, and external debt denominated in foreign currency. A nation can service external debt denominated in domestic currency by tax revenues, but to service foreign currency debt it has to convert tax revenues in the foreign exchange market to foreign currency, which puts downward pressure on the value of its currency.


title: Debt-to-GDP ratio

text: According to the IMF World Economic Outlook Database (April 2021), the level of Gross Government debt-to-GDP ratio in Canada was 116.3%, in China 66.8%, in India 89.6%, in Germany 70.3%, in France 115.2% and in the United States 132.8%.


title: Debt-to-GDP ratio

text: Two-thirds of US public debt is owned by US citizens, banks, corporations, and the Federal Reserve Bank; approximately one-third of US public debt is held by foreign countries – particularly China and Japan. In comparison, less than 5% of Italian and Japanese public debt is held by foreign countries.


title: The Head on the Door

text: The Head on the Door is the sixth studio album by English rock band the Cure. It was released on 30 August 1985 by Fiction Records. Preceded by the single "In Between Days" which had reached No. 15 on the UK Singles Chart, "The Head on the Door" was described by "Melody Maker" as "a collection of pop songs". With its variety of styles, it allowed the group to reach a wider audience in both Europe and North America. In the United Kingdom it became their most successful album to date, entering the albums chart at No. 7 on 7 September.


title: The Head on the Door

text: The album is the first to feature drummer Boris Williams. Bassist Simon Gallup, who had previously worked on three major Cure albums of the early 1980s, was called back before the recording. In 1985, the band became a quintet with instrumentalist Porl Thompson as their fifth official member. "The Head on the Door" is the first Cure album where all the songs were composed solely by singer and guitarist Robert Smith.


title: The Head on the Door

text: This album marks the return of Simon Gallup in the group; he had performed and composed with Robert Smith and Lol Tolhurst on the dark trilogy "Seventeen Seconds", "Faith" and "Pornography". Guitarist Porl Thompson, who had played guitar during the very early days of the band, and also played keyboards and saxophone during "The Top" tour, became an official member. Drummer Boris Williams, who had previously worked with Thompson Twins, finally joined the ensemble after playing with the band during the US leg of the 1984 tour.


title: The Head on the Door

text: During promotion for the record, Smith stated that "The Head on the Door" was inspired by the albums "Kaleidoscope" by Siouxsie and the Banshees and "Dare" by the Human League. He wanted the album to be eclectic with different styles and moods: "It reminds me of the "Kaleidoscope" album, the idea of having lots of different sounding things, different colours". "Kyoto Song" contains an oriental hook, while "The Blood" is played in a flamenco style. The piano tune of "Six Different Ways" had been previously used by Smith during his tenure with Siouxsie and the Banshees, for the single "Swimming Horses". The last song of the album, "Sinking", was reminiscent of the band's "Faith" era, while "Close to Me" (released as the album's second and final single) was described as a "disco thing" by critics. The opening track and first single, "In Between Days", was compared to New Order's material. "A Night Like This" contains a saxophone solo by Ron Howe from Fools Dance. The title of the album comes from a line in the chorus of "Close to Me".


title: The Head on the Door

text: When he was interviewed that year, Smith said that his five favourite albums were at that time "Mirror Moves" by the Psychedelic Furs, "This Year's Model" by Elvis Costello, "Low" by David Bowie, "Kaleidoscope" by Siouxsie and the Banshees and "Rattus Norvegicus" by the Stranglers.


title: The Head on the Door

text: Released on 30 August 1985, "The Head on the Door" was the first big international success for the band, notably entering the top 75 in the US and reaching the top 20 in numerous other countries. The album is certified gold in the US, UK and France.


title: The Head on the Door

text: Upon its release, "The Head on the Door" was well received by the British press. In a very favourable review, "Melody Maker"s Steve Sutherland hailed the "liberty" that Smith took to conceive a multifaceted record. Chris Roberts of "Sounds" said that it "makes you wish more pop stars were hip enough to stay in bed all day". "Record Mirror" reviewer Andy Strickland wrote that "The Head on the Door" "may lack the swirls of chorused guitar that many adore, but there's a wider more mature musical approach". Mat Snow of "NME" found that the album "is really quite pop", and that "tunes abound". In December 1985 it was named the best album of the year by "Melody Maker".


title: The Head on the Door

text: In a retrospective review, AllMusic critic Tim Sendra noted that "The Head on the Door" marked a new musical direction for the Cure in that Smith had managed to make the band's trademark "gloom and doom" style both "danceable and popular"; Sendra also found that the album's "inventive" arrangements provide "a musical depth previous efforts lacked". Writing for "Q", Tom Doyle said that songs such as "In Between Days" and "Close to Me" showed Smith "bridging the brooding of yore with their recent pop highs". Nitsuh Abebe of "Pitchfork" deemed it the band's "most focused pop album" and "a tight, terrific package". "PopMatters" included "The Head on the Door" on its list of 12 essential alternative rock albums from the 1980s, calling the record "an outstanding example of Smith's ability to use pop music as a means to express angst while applying just a hint of the polish".


title: The Head on the Door

text: A cover version of "A Night Like This" was released on the 1996 reissue of the Smashing Pumpkins' "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" single.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina ("née" Sneed; born September 6, 1954) is an American businesswoman and politician, known primarily for her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP). As chief executive officer of HP from 1999 to 2005, Fiorina was the first woman to lead a "Fortune" Top-20 company.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In 2002, Fiorina oversaw what was then the largest technology sector merger in history, in which HP acquired rival personal computer manufacturer, Compaq. The transaction made HP the world's largest seller of personal computers. HP subsequently laid off 30,000 U.S. employees. Nonetheless, the number of employees exceeded the pre-merger figure and grew to 150,000 during her tenure. In February 2005, she was forced to resign as CEO and chair following a boardroom disagreement. She subsequently served as Chair of the philanthropic organization Good360.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate in 2010 and the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Fiorina was an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. In 2010, she won the Republican nomination for the United States Senate in California, but lost the general election to incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer. Fiorina was a candidate in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, and was for seven days the vice-presidential running mate of Ted Cruz until he suspended his campaign.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Cara Carleton Sneed was born on September 6, 1954, in Austin, Texas, the daughter of Madelon Montross (née Juergens) and Joseph Tyree Sneed III. The name "Carleton", from which "Carly" is derived, has been used in every generation of the Sneed family since the Civil War. At the time of her birth, Fiorina's father was a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. He would later become dean of Duke University School of Law, Deputy U.S. Attorney General, and judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Her mother was an abstract painter. She is mainly of English and German ancestry, and was raised Episcopalian. Her paternal great-great-great-grandfather, Joseph P. Sneed, was a Methodist minister and educator in Texas. Her paternal great-great-great-great-uncle built the Constantine Sneed House in Brentwood, Tennessee, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Carly was a Brownie but did not become a Girl Scout due to her family's frequent moves. She attended Channing School, in London. She later attended five different high schools, including one in Ghana, graduating from Charles E. Jordan High School in Durham, North Carolina. At one time she aspired to be a classical pianist. She received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and medieval history at Stanford University, in 1976. During her summers, she worked as a secretary for Kelly Services. She attended the UCLA School of Law in 1976, but dropped out after one semester. She worked as a receptionist for six months at a real estate firm, Marcus & Millichap, moving up to a broker position. When she married in 1977, she and her husband moved to Bologna, Italy, where he was doing graduate work; there she did English tutoring to Italian businessmen.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In 1980, Fiorina received a Master of Business Administration, in marketing, from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. In 1989 she obtained a Master of Science degree in management from the MIT Sloan School of Management, under the Sloan Fellows program.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In 1980, Fiorina joined AT&T as a management trainee, selling telephone services to big federal agencies. In 1990, she became the company's first female officer as senior vice president overseeing the company's hardware and systems division, eventually heading its North American operations.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In 1995, Fiorina led corporate operations for Lucent Technologies, Inc., a spin-off from AT&T of its Western Electric and Bell Labs divisions into a new company. In that capacity, she reported to Lucent chief executive Henry B. Schacht. She played a key role in planning and implementing the 1996 initial public offering of a successful stock and company launch strategy. The spin-off became one of the most successful IPOs in U.S. history, raising 3 billion.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Later in 1996, Fiorina was appointed president of Lucent's consumer products sector. In 1997, she was named group president for Lucent's 19 billion global service-provider business, overseeing marketing and sales for the company's largest customer segment. That year, Fiorina chaired a 2.5 billion joint venture between Lucent's consumer communications and Royal Philips Electronics, under the name Philips Consumer Communications (PCC). In the edition of October 12, 1998, of "Fortune" magazine, Fiorina was named "The Most Powerful Woman in American Business".


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Lucent added 22,000 jobs and revenues grew from US$19 billion to US$38 billion and the company's market share increased in every region for every product. According to Fortune magazine, Lucent increased sales by lending money to their own customers, writing that "In a neat bit of accounting magic, money from the loans began to appear on Lucent's income statement as new revenue while the dicey debt got stashed on its balance sheet as an allegedly solid asset". Lucent's stock price grew 10-fold.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In July 1999, Hewlett-Packard Company named Fiorina chief executive officer, succeeding Lewis Platt and prevailing over the internal candidate Ann Livermore. Matthew Boyle of "Fortune" magazine said of Fiorina's hiring as HP's first woman CEO that, "Carly Fiorina didn't just break the glass ceiling, she obliterated it, as the first woman to lead a FORTUNE 20 company."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Writing in "Fortune" magazine in August 2015, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld described the hiring as the result of "a dysfunctional HP board committee, filled with its own poisoned politics, hired her with no CEO experience, nor interviews with the full board." Fiorina received a larger signing offer than any of her predecessors, including: 65 million in restricted stock to compensate her for the Lucent stock and options she left behind, a 3 million signing bonus, a 1 million annual salary (plus a 1.25–3.75 million annual bonus), 36,000 in mortgage assistance, a relocation allowance, and permission (and encouragement) to use company planes for personal affairs. Fortune also named her the most powerful woman in America for five consecutive years.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Although the decision to spin off the company's analytical instruments division pre-dated her arrival, one of her first major responsibilities as chief executive was overseeing the separation of the unit into the stand-alone Agilent Technologies. Fiorina proposed the acquisition of the technology services arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers for almost 14 billion, but withdrew the bid after a lackluster reception from Wall Street. Following the collapse of the dot-com bubble, the PwC consulting arm was acquired by IBM for less than 4 billion. HP later acquired Electronic Data Systems, another technology services company, which some considered a validation of Fiorina's strategy.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In early September 2001, in the wake of the bursting of the Tech Bubble, Fiorina announced the acquisition of PC maker Compaq with 25 billion in stock, which, at the time, was the second largest producer of personal computers, after Dell. HP stock traded down by 30% on the news of the merger. The Compaq merger created the world's largest personal computer manufacturer in terms of units shipped.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina was frequently at odds with HP's board of directors, and she had to fight with the board for the merger. Walter Hewlett (the son of company co-founder William Hewlett) was a source of particularly strong opposition. Hewlett originally voted with the other board members to approve the Compaq deal, but he later changed his mind. He launched a proxy fight against Fiorina's efforts which Fiorina won with a "razor-thin margin" of 51.4% of the shareholders, with the institutional shareholders providing the bulk of the support. Fiorina was supported in the proxy battle by other board members, including Richard Hackborn, Philip M. Condit, George A. Keyworth, II, and Robert Knowling. Fiorina proceeded to reorganize HP and merge the parts of it that she kept with Compaq.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: The merger was met initially with almost universal skepticism. The February 7, 2005 issue of "Fortune" described her merger plan as "failing" and the prognosis as "doubtful". Business professor Robert Burgelman and former HP executive vice president, Webb McKinney, who led HP's post-merger integration team, analyzed the merger and concluded that it was ultimately successful. In 2008, former acting CEO of Compaq Ben Rosen stated that although Fiorina lacked the skills to run the merged company, her successors made it work. HP was able to integrate Compaq's operations and emerge as the world's largest seller of personal computers. The industry soon fell into decline, leading to further difficulties for the company. HP eventually wrote off 1.2 billion from the acquisition as the personal computer market declined. Looking back, a 2011 "The New York Times" article described it as "one of the more questionable deals of the time."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In 1997, prior to Fiorina's joining the company, HP's Dutch subsidiary formed a partnership with a company in Dubai, Redington Gulf, which sold HP's products in Iran. Under Fiorina's leadership at HP, the company sold millions of dollars worth of printers and computer products to Iran through the foreign subsidiary, while U.S. export sanctions were in effect. After the story was initially reported by "The Boston Globe" in 2008, the SEC sent a letter of inquiry to HP, who responded that products worth 120 million were sold in fiscal 2008 arguing that the sales did not violate export sanctions because they were made through a foreign subsidiary. According to former officials who worked on sanctions, HP was using a loophole by routing their sales through a foreign subsidiary. HP ended its relationship with Redington Gulf after the SEC inquiry.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In a September 2015 interview with Michael Isikoff, Fiorina said that, in the weeks following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, she received a phone call from Michael Hayden, then the director of the National Security Agency, asking her assistance in providing HP computer servers to the NSA for expanded surveillance. Hayden confirmed that he had made the request for HP servers as part of Stellar Wind, a 2001–2007 NSA warrantless surveillance program, but the details were not revealed to Fiorina at the time. Fiorina "acknowledged she complied with Hayden's request, redirecting trucks of HP computer servers that were on their way to retail stores from a warehouse in Tennessee to the Washington Beltway, where they were escorted by NSA security" to the agency's Fort Meade headquarters. In 2015, Fiorina said: "I felt it was my duty to help, and so we did," adding, "They were ramping up a whole set of programs and needed a lot of data crunching capability to try and monitor a whole set of threats. ... What I knew at the time was our nation had been attacked." Hayden also requested that Fiorina provide advice to the agency "on how the CIA could maintain its undercover espionage mission in a culture of increasing government leaks and demands for greater public accountability and openness." According to Fiorina, she advised the agency to be "as transparent as possible, about as much as possible".


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina's predecessor at HP had pushed for an outsider to replace him because he believed that the company had become complacent and that consensus-driven decision making was inhibiting the company's growth. Fiorina instituted three major changes shortly after her arrival: replacing profit sharing with bonuses awarded if the company met financial expectations, a reduction in operating units from 83 to 12, and consolidating back-office functions.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina faced a backlash among HP employees and the tech community for her leading role in the demise of HP's egalitarian "The HP Way" work culture and guiding philosophy, which she felt hindered innovation. Because of changes to HP's culture, and requests for voluntary pay cuts to prevent layoffs (subsequently followed by the largest layoffs in HP's history), employee satisfaction surveys at HPpreviously among the highest in Americarevealed "widespread unhappiness" and distrust, and Fiorina was sometimes booed at company meetings and attacked on HP's electronic bulletin board.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: According to "The Fiscal Times", Fiorina and others have argued that she "laid the groundwork for some of HP's progress under her successors", and that she shook the culture at HP so that it could compete in the Internet Age.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In January 2004, Fiorina announced an agreement with Apple founder Steve Jobs for the iPod+HPa co-branded iPod sold through HP's retail channels. As part of the agreement, HP was forbidden from selling a competitor to the iPod until August 2006 and HP agreed to pre-install iTunes on every computer sold. Two days before Fiorina announced the HP+iPod, Jobs announced a new product, the iPod mini, catching Fiorina off guard. HP did not sell the newer versions of the iPod in a timely fashion, leaving them to sell an outdated device for several months. In addition, Apple began selling its own iPods through the same retail channels. As a result, at the peak of the program, iPod+HP sales represented only a small portion of total iPod sales. In July 2005, soon after Fiorina resigned as CEO, her successor Mark Hurd ended HP's agreement with Apple, within days of taking office, a "highly symbolic decision" that was well-received as a return to innovation by HP.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Steven Levy, writing in 2015 on the agreement, wrote that "Steve Jobs blithely mugged her and HP's shareholders. By getting Fiorina to adopt the iPod as HP's music player, Jobs had effectively gotten his [iTunes] software installed on millions of computers for free, stifled his main competitor, and gotten a company that prided itself on invention to declare that Apple was a superior inventor. And he lost nothing ..."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In January 2001, HP laid off 1,700 marketing employees. In June 2001, Fiorina asked employees to either take pay cuts or use their allotted vacation time to cut additional costs, resulting in more than 80,000 people signing up and saving HP 130 million. Despite these efforts from employees, in July Fiorina announced that 6,000 jobs would be cut, the biggest reduction in the company's 64-year history, but those cuts would not actually occur until after the Compaq merger was announced. In September 2001, Fiorina said she intended to cut an additional 15,000 jobs in the event of a merger with Compaq.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In all, Fiorina laid off 30,000 U.S. employees. According to "PolitiFact", those 30,000 layoffs were "as a result of the merger with Compaq..." By 2004 the number of HP employees was about the same as the pre-merger total of HP and Compaq combined, and that 2004 number included roughly 8,000 employees of other companies acquired by HP since 2001. Altogether, under Fiorina's leadership, HP had a net gain of employees, including employees from mergers as well as hires in countries outside the United States.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In 1999, when Fiorina became CEO of HP, the company had 84,800 employees. After the merger with Compaq, the company had a total of 145,000 employees worldwide. At the time of her resignation in 2005, after HP had acquired several other companies, HP had about 150,000 employees.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: HP's revenue doubled and the rate of patent filings increased due to mergers with Compaq and other companies during Fiorina's stint as CEO. In addition, HP's cash flow increased by 40%, to around $6.8 billion. However, the company underperformed by a number of other metrics: there were no gains in HP's net income despite a 70% gain in net income of the S&P 500 over this period; the company's debt rose from 4.25 billion to 6.75 billion; and its stock price fell by 50%, exceeding declines in the S&P 500 Information Technology Sector index and the NASDAQ. By contrast, stock prices for IBM and Dell fell by 27.5% and 3% respectively during this time. The Compaq acquisition was not as transformative as Fiorina and the board had envisioned: in the merger proxy, they had forecasted that the PC division of the merged entities would generate an operating margin of 3.0% in 2003, while the actual figure was 0.1% in that year and 0.9% in 2004.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In 2004, HP fell dramatically short of its predicted third-quarter earnings, and Fiorina fired three executives during a 5 AM telephone call. In early January 2005, the Hewlett-Packard board of directors discussed with Fiorina a list of issues that the board had regarding the company's performance and disappointing earning reports. The board proposed a plan to shift her authority to HP division heads, which Fiorina resisted strongly. A week after the meeting, the confidential plan was leaked to "The Wall Street Journal". According to "BusinessWeek"'s Ben Elgin, directors were also concerned about the board's inability to work effectively with Fiorina.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Less than a month later, the board brought back Tom Perkins and forced Fiorina to resign as chair and chief executive officer of the company. The company's stock jumped 6.9 percent on news of her departure, adding almost three billion dollars to the value of HP in a single day.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In her book "Tough Choices", she referred to board members' behavior as "amateurish and immature". Larry Sonsini, who investigated the leak related to Fiorina's forced resignation, described the board in his report to Fiorina as being "dysfunctional."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: On May 13, 2008, HP, under then-Chief Executive Mark Hurd, confirmed that it had reached a deal to buy Electronic Data Systems, the largest since the Compaq purchase. The price was a reported $12.6 billion. At the time of the announcement, Loren Steffy of "The Houston Chronicle" suggested that the EDS acquisition after Fiorina's tenure was evidence that her failed plan to acquire part of Pricewaterhouse Coopers was justified.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Under the company's agreement with Fiorina, which was characterized as a golden parachute by "Time" magazine, and Yahoo! Finance, Fiorina received a severance package valued at 21 million, which consisted of 2.5 times her annual salary plus bonus and the balance from accelerated vesting of stock options.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: According to "Fortune" magazine, Fiorina collected over 100 million in compensation during her short tenure at HP.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In 2003, Fiorina was named by "Fortune Magazine" the most powerful woman in business, a position she held for five years. In 2004, she was included in the "Time" 100 ranking of "most influential people in the world today" and named tenth on the "Forbes" list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women. In 2005, "The Wall Street Journal" described Fiorina as the epitome of "an alluring, controversial new breed of chief executive officers who combine grand visions with charismatic but self-centered and demanding styles". The same year, Wharton School of Business professor Michael Useem opined, "Fiorina scored high on leadership style, but she failed to execute strategy".


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Following her forced resignation from HP, several commentators ranked Fiorina as one of the worst American (or tech) CEOs of all time. In 2008, "InfoWorld" grouped her with a list of products and ideas that flopped, declaring that her tenure as CEO of HP was the sixth worst tech flop of all time, and characterizing her as the "anti-Steve Jobs" for reversing the goodwill of "geeks" and alienating existing customers. During Fiorina's tenure as CEO, HP leased or purchased five planes, including two Gulfstream IVs, to replace four aging aircraft, only one of which had the range to fly overseas. One Gulfstream IV, acquired at a cost of 30 million and available for Fiorina's "exclusive" use, became a rallying point among HP employees who complained of Fiorina's expensive self-promotion and top-down managerial style during a time of company layoffs. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Yale School of Management said in August 2015 that problems with Fiorina's leadership style were what caused HP to lose half its value during her tenure.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Others have defended her business leadership decisions and viewed the Compaq merger as successful over the long term.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In October 2006, Fiorina published an autobiography entitled "Tough Choices", about her career and her views on issues, what constitutes a leader, how women can thrive in business, and the role technology will continue to play in reshaping the world. A review by NPR Books noted that "The book covers Fiorina's rise and fall as America's most powerful female executive."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Earlier books by others about Fiorina's role in the merger at HP included: "Backfire," (2003) by Peter Burrows, and "Perfect Enough: Carly Fiorina and the Reinvention of Hewlett-Packard," (2003), by George Anders. A 2003 review by "The New York Times" of these books said, "Two new books about the deal and its main championHewlett-Packard's chair and chief executive officer, Carly Fiorinashow that there is much investors can glean immediately from this merger."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: After resigning from HP, Fiorina served on the board of Revolution Health Group and computer security company Cybertrust in 2005. In 2006, she became a member of the board of directors for chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), but resigned from that board on November 30, 2009, with the company saying this was "because she planned to devote her full time and energy" to her Senate campaign. She had attended 17% of the TSMC directors' meetings in 2009 and 20% of TSMC directors' meetings in 2008. She served as a member of the MIT Corporation from 2004 to 2012. She was a member of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2005. She is an honorary fellow of the London Business School. In July 2012, Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia appointed her to the James Madison University Board of Visitors. In 2015, Fiorina received an honorary degree and delivered the commencement address at Southern New Hampshire University.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina is the chair and CEO of Carly Fiorina Enterprises, a business and charitable foundation. A spokesperson described Fiorina Enterprises as "...a nonprofit enterprise that helped Fiorina structure speaking engagements and appearances while providing the public with information about her activities..." The "San Francisco Chronicle" reported that, as of July 2009, she had "never registered her Carly Fiorina Enterprises to conduct business in California, either with the California secretary of state or the clerk of Santa Clara County, where Fiorina lives."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In April 2012, Fiorina became chair of Good360, a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan nonprofit organization in Alexandria, Virginia, which helps companies donate excess merchandise to charities. Good360 has been consistently ranked by "Forbes" magazine as one of the top 10 most efficient charities, and ranked as the 33rd largest charity in the United States. Good360 is "the largest product donation marketplace in the world. We help companies take excess inventory and then distribute that excess inventory to 37,000 vetted charities around this country." In September 2014, Fiorina led an effort by Good360 to get American corporations "to help combat the Ebola virus in West Africa – by donating specific items." She left the organization when she declared her presidential candidacy in 2015.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina served as Fund Chair of One Woman Initiative (OWI), a partnership between the private sector and government agencies, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United States Department of State (DoS). OWI describes itself as "An International Women's Empowerment Fund" that seeks to "support existing initiatives in Muslim majority countries and countries with large Muslim populations" and "focus on key empowerment issues including entrepreneurship, political leadership, and the rule of law." OWI said it would raise funds in order to give grants to achieve these objectives, with contributions managed through a separate section 501(c)(3) designated organization.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In June 2009, USAID announced that OWI grants totaling over 500,000 had been made to grassroots organizations in Azerbaijan, Egypt, India, Pakistan, and the Philippines.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: On February 14, 2013, Opportunity International announced a partnership with Fiorina and OWI to provide financial resources, education and training to two million women living in poverty. Fiorina was referred to as Global Ambassador to Opportunity International. On May 4, 2015, Opportunity International announced that Fiorina was resigning from the Board after the announcement of her presidential candidacy.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina is the chair and CEO of the Fiorina Foundation, a charity that has donated to causes including Care-a-Van for Kids, a transportation program to aid seriously ill children, and the African Leadership Academy, an educational institution in South Africa. The foundation 'enables corporations, spokeswomen entrepreneurs and philanthropists alike to address some of the world's most challenging issues,' according to Fiorina's Web site, carlyfiorina.com."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: The "San Francisco Chronicle" reported that "Records also show that her Fiorina Foundation has never registered with the Internal Revenue Service or the state attorney general's charitable trust division, which tax-exempt charities are required to do. A spokeswoman commented that "Fiorina and her staff believed the foundation was not required to file with the IRS because it accepted no outside contributions and donated only her personal wealth to worthy causes."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In 2017, Fiorina joined the board of trustees for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. In December 2020, she was elected the chair of the board of trustees.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Fiorina has never held public office, but said that her status as an outsider is a positive attribute, given that in her opinion, professional politicians have failed to deliver to the American people, stating in an interview with Fox News in 2015 that "82% of the American people now think we need people from outside the professional political class to serve in public office."


title: Carly Fiorina

text: In 2006, Fiorina worked as an advisor for Republican Senator John McCain's presidential campaign. In early 2008, she was referred to in media sources as a potential vice presidential candidate, and "The New York Times" noted that while she did not want to run, she was an executive who could possibly become a candidate for president. On March 7, 2008, Fiorina was named fundraising chair for the Republican National Committee's "Victory" initiative. She was reportedly a "point person" for the McCain campaign on issues related to business and economic affairs. Fiorina's severance package from Hewlett-Packard in 2005 was viewed by some as a political liability during the campaign.


title: Carly Fiorina

text: Earlier that day, she defended the selection of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate and said that Palin was being subjected to sexist attacks, a charge she repeated a few days later in response to one of the "Saturday Night Live" parodies of Sarah Palin.