There we were lectured by an Anglican vicar whose stutter did not prevent him from recounting at length the mystery of the Trinity and the bodily ascent of Christ into heaven.

That was in the years of WWII when our childish minds were coping already with understanding modern miracles such as radar and its ability to transmit images of bodies and things by a ping of wireless.

Ten days later followed Pentecost; a festival in which was commemorated the foundation of the Church by the descent of the Holy Spirit to possess the disciples and inspire them to spread the gospel through an enlightened teaching of the new faith illuminated by the multi-linguistic writing of the Acts. To support belief, both events were illustrated by a series of postcards each with a descriptive text taken from the New Testament.

The resurrection of the body and/or reincarnation of the spirit has been the substance of religious eschatological belief and superstition for millennia ranging from the times of Osiris and Baal in Canaan and the gods of immortality in ancient Greece to the Samsara of Hinduism and Zen of Buddhism. However, it is in the Abrahamic creeds that resurrection is a dominant theme both for the individual and universally at the supposed end of the world. On Ascension Day, Christians will celebrate their belief that Jesus rose from the dead and presented himself to his disciples before ascending into heaven to prepare for his return to Earth on the day of judgement.

In the mayhem of the 21st century, we continue to be overwhelmed by the incredible speed at which superior versions of Artificial Intelligence are being employed to compress the past and future into present “Real Time”. For example, the contents of last Wills can now be presented to beneficiaries by the digital presence of the dear departed; the works of composers, writers, artists as previously recorded by their amanuenses can be employed to recreate what appears to be new material and, fearfully, the control of our lives by the elite of governance may continue by edict from beyond the grave. With the advent of AI into all aspects of our lives, one well speculate as to what would be the outcome if the data from the gospels, apocrypha and biblical scrolls were analysed robotically to obtain simulations of the Christ and his teachings. According to a report issued by the cybersecurity agency Imperva, most of internet traffic is now initiated by “bots”. Of these, one half are stated to be bad bots engaged in fraud, hacking and misinformation while the others are not so bad but busy with the creation and circulation of opinions, comment and propaganda which serve the purpose of whoever pays.

In the absence of any global regulation to counter such abomination, it seems that we must place our trust in Relational Intelligence. This new expression posits the belief that there exists a base of ethical goodness in the souls of humankind which can be harnessed to create paradigms of cyber comportment which will resist diabolism. To succeed it will require a profound transformation of societal behaviour so that the criteria may be assembled for collective resistance to change for the worse.

The observance of anniversaries and festivals has been a mainstay of all religious practise for millenia. Will the application of AI logic result in their abolition and replacement by robotic quackery?