part0036

It is tempting to consider Archbishop Marcinkus, implicated in the P2 fascist plots in Italy and South America, as an example of a Joycean

or Cain function. Archbishop Romeros, murdered for opposing that fascist conspiracy, would then be a

or Abel function.

Considering the role of ALP in Joycean and Cabalistic symbolism, it is distinctly odd then that the bank which laundered the cocaine money for P2 was called CisALPine (emphasis added). This was owned chiefly by Archbishop Marcinkus and "God's banker," Roberto Calvi, found hanged Irom Blackfriars Bridge in London on 18 June 1982.

Only the most imaginative would find a hint of Roberto Calvi in Joyce's "Robman Calvinic" on page 519 of FW .

Still, it is deucedly odd that Licio Gelli, Grandmaster of the P2 Conspiracy, was also a Knight of Malta. Other recent Knights of Malta, as we have mentioned, include William Casey of the CIA and Alexander Haig. Another Knight of Malta, and receiver of the Order's Grand Cross of Merit, was General Richard Gehlen, a former Nazi who became the CIA's principle source of espionage within Soviet Russia. According to Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln in The Messianic Legacy , other Knights of Malta include Alexandre de Marenches, former chief of French Intelligence, Generals de Lorenzo and Allavena, former chiefs of the Italian secret service and Admiral Torrisi, chief of the Italian General Staff.

It all rather reminds me of a remark once made to me by Alan Watts: "The great error of academic historians is the belief that the Roman Empire 'fell.' It never 'fell.' It still controls the Western world through the Vatican and the Mafia."

Joyce scholars have not yet satisfactorily explained the number 1132 that recurs constantly in FW ; I gave my own guess earlier. It is interesting that in the 32nd degree of Freemasonry the Knights of Malta are specifically named as the agents of tyranny and superstition against whom all Freemasons must struggle if light and liberty are ever to prevail on this planet.

What is even more peculiar is that Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, in their earlier Holy Blood, Holy Grail argue that one force in addition to Freemasonry, or perhaps "behind" Freemasonry has opposed the Vatican/Mafia coalition for centuries, and that force is a group of descendants of the Merovingian dynasty of France. Whatever one thinks of this Romantic theory, it is startling to note that a great deal of the evidence used by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln deals with the still-unsolved murder of the last Merovingian king, Dagobert II.

Dagobert was killed on another damned day with a 23 in it—23 December 679—and in the Ardennes forest of France, which is named after the bear-goddess Arduine, cognate with Artemis and Joyce's whole arth family of bear gods.

The most famous modern novel about the Knights of Malta is, of course, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. I apologize immediately for the Ham that has crept in again in Hammett's name, and I am even more embarrassed to call your attention to the climax in which the gold falcon of the Knights of Malta seems to have been found at last, and turns out to be a fake.