WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 1, 2003) -- At a brief press conference today, Vice President Dick Cheney admitted that he has been "dabbling in the occult" for the past 20 years.
Cheney's occult practices were accidentally revealed when a satellite photograph of Cheney fell out of one of Colin Powell's folders as he was presenting his intelligence report on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction to the U.N. Security Council in early February. In the photo, the vice president was wearing robes and a pointy hat and holding a copy of an ancient, mystical text called the Necronomicon, while standing in the center of a circle drawn in an "undisclosed, secret location" and sealed with plastic sheeting and duct tape.
The Council, on seeing the photograph, demanded an explanation from the vice president. Cheney initially refused to comment on accusations that he has been practicing the occult, stating that what goes on in the White House is "nobody's damn business." But in the press conference today, he said that pressure from the Council, to which the Bush Administration has tried to sell a second resolution to allow use of force against Saddam Hussein, had convinced him that he should break his silence about his occult work.
When a reporter showed President Bush a copy of the satellite photograph and asked him for his reaction to Cheney's admission, the president responded sternly, "Do not misunderestimate Vice President Cheney. He is an important member of my team, and he can practice high magick all he wants, as long as he doesn't inhale."
When asked for her response, First Lady and former librarian Laura Bush merely sighed, pointed to the Necronomicon and said, "Well, at least he's reading."
According to sources close to the White House, Cheney has been performing magickal rites since the early 1980s, when he was a Wyoming senator. During that period, Cheney learned from then-President Ronald Reagan's astrologer, Joan Quigley, that she always timed the president's delivery of bad news to the public so that his speeches fell when the Moon was "void of course." Astrologers believe that anything said or done during these void periods will not "stick" in the minds of the public, and Quigley used this information to help earn Reagan the unofficial title of "Teflon President." Cheney saw the power in this practice and decided to dive into the occult to learn how to hide his own behind-the-scenes work.
While at first drawn to Wicca, a pagan nature religion that uses magick, Cheney was shunned by the Wiccan community in the mid-1980s when they realized that he was an advocate of opening up the national forests to logging and oil drilling. "We're tree huggers, not tree cutters, so we booted him out," claims Treenymph Crystaltoter, a Washington, D.C.-area Wiccan.
Cheney tells a different story. "I left Wicca because I couldn't stand to be bossed around by a bunch of women, just like the great Aleister Crowley allegedly did."
According to one source, Cheney then moved on to learn about high magick and the Kabalah, an ancient Hebrew mystical system, because these practices were, in his words, more "results-oriented." Struggling to learn the Hebrew necessary for performing these complex rites, Cheney turned to then-General Ariel Sharon of Israel. The two bonded when they discovered that their totem animals, or spirit guides, were both hawks.
When asked about Cheney's Hebrew, Sharon laughs, "You should have heard him at first. His pronunciation was worse than Madonna's during her Kabalah phase. But now he can tell his Hesed from his Yesode."
During his studies, Cheney discovered that he had a natural talent for magickal obfuscation, or hiding the truth. He used this to great advantage both before and after the 2000 presidential election. "He thinks he's pretty smart," said Cheney's magickal lodge brother, Frater Choronzon. "He brags in the lodge all the time about how he used his own brand of `smoke and mirrors' to hide the fact that in the year 2000 alone, while he was CEO of the company, Haliburton Oil did more than $100 million in business with Saddam Hussein. He's also managed to hide W's insider trading, the names of the members of the Presidential Energy Commission, the extra 200,000 Florida ballots in favor of Al Gore and a really ugly boil that he's had on his ass for years."
"Yeah, he's become a master of the top of the witches' pyramid, the part that says `to keep silent,'" admits Crystaltoter ruefully. "He's tighter than a Gardnerian in a room full of Charmed fans."
Insiders close to the vice president, however, say that the magickal skill that Cheney is most proud of is his ability to channel the spirit of Aleister Crowley at will. When asked whether Cheney channeled Crowley for press conferences, a White House aide replied, "I don't know if he does, but it would certainly explain why in all of his press photos he looks like he's just eaten a really bad batch of kim chee."
Cheney's wife, Lynne Cheney, was more forthcoming about her husband's channeling. "When he's channeling Crowley, he's an absolute misogynist pig," she said. "But the sex is fantastic."
Despite the fact that Cheney's "coming out" about his occult work might alienate the Religious Right, some of the Bush Administration's staunchest supporters, President Bush seems pleased with Cheney's abilities.
"He's a master of the subliminable," the president said proudly. "He can make anything disappear eventually. Besides, if Pat [Robertson] or Billy [Graham] and the rest of the Religious Reich get too uppity about it, we'll just remind them that we have satellite photos of them performing the sex magick ritual from Lesson 10 of Modern Magick by Donald Michael Craig. Without their wives."
Not everyone in the administration is happy with Cheney's magick, however. "When the whole Cheney magick thing came out, (Attorney General John) Ashcroft doused himself in holy water and doubled the number of `voluntary' staff prayer meetings in his office," grumbled one White House aide. "He closes his eyes and crosses his index fingers in front of his face whenever Cheney walks by."
Despite some resistance, Cheney's magick has permeated White House life. One person who will probably never fully participate in his rituals, however, is the president himself. Said Cheney, "He can't even pronounce the word nuclear. How do you think he's going to do with Giburah or Tzadkiel?"