and a bit of cross-threading.

"Cabalistic" and "cabal" have to do with mysterious societies and arcane lore and maybe conspiracies - but is there any relation to cavalry and cavalier and chivalrous and all those other horsey words? French has cheval, and Italian has Cavalleria Rusticana, and Spanish has caballo and caballero, and I don't know the Latin but I suspect it's the common root, but did it spill into mysticism somehow or is it just convergent evolution?

Latin for horse is equus (whence equine and cognate with Gk hippos as in hippopotamus). Late Latin caballus (whence all the Romance horsy set of words) is pretty rare in Latin texts.

Cabal is ultimately from Hebrew qabbalah 'received doctrine, tradition' < root [url=http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/S232.html]q.b.l.[url]

Calvary (aka Golgotha) is the name of a hill near Jerusalem where crucifictions took place under the Roman occupation.