The Sacred

What happens when the AI tools we used to make life easier started to change the way we think? Journalist and author Jamie Bartlett joins Elizabeth Oldfield for a live recording to explore what AI reveals about human nature, why we keep using tools we’re worried about, and what we risk losing when we let machines do our thinking for us. We talk about: • How using AI has affected Jamie’s own writin...

What Does It Take to Create a Shared Home in a Divided City? In Jerusalem, two women from opposite sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, Riman Barakat and Karen Brunwasser, have spent more than a decade building FeelBeit , a shared arts and cultural space where Israeli and Palestinian artists and communities are invited to ‘feel at home’ together. In this moving conversation, recorded live at A...

Can you really vote your way to a good society - or does it have to be built house by house, street by street? Dr James Vitali - Head of Political Economy at Policy Exchange, a Sandhurst-trained army reservist, local councillor, and author of The Ownership Society: How Bourgeois Values Can Save Britain - talks about the Dorset church at the heart of his childhood, what military service taught him...

What does it mean to prepare to die—and then discover that you need to prepare to live again? In this conversation, poet Christian Wiman reflects on faith, poetry, love, mortality, and his experience of living for more than 20 years with cancer.  He talks about his turbulent childhood, how poetry transformed his anger into something creative, and why he believes poems can open us to something beyo...

What are we losing by spending so much of our lives behind screens? COVID-19 brought the whole world online, and as a podcast we kind of stayed there. This season, we made a commitment to only recording in person, mostly at Elizabeth’s community house in south London. As a result, we sensed a big shift in our connection with guests and we thought we’d take an opportunity to reflect on a few things...

What do you do when you feel like an outsider? We spoke to Rabbi Angela Buchdahl who turned her experience of being a cultural and religious outsider into a source of strength. Raised in a biracial, mixed-faith American-Korean family, her identity was both welcomed and questioned in Korean and Jewish communities. She later would later go on to become one of the most prominent and influential publi...

We talk a lot about the harms and benefits of AI, but we don’t talk enough about what the conversations about AI might actually be doing to us. Perhaps the biggest challenge in the mix may not be the technology itself, but how it changes the way we think, communicate, and relate to each other as humans. We’re creating some space for a different kind of conversation about AI with Jamie Bartlett on...

Why do stories matter? Why have human beings always told stories - and what if the oldest stories still have something vital to teach us? In this episode of The Sacred, Elizabeth Oldfield sits down with psychologist, mythologist and bestselling author Dr Sharon Blackie to explore why myths and fairy tales aren't just relics of the past, but tools for making sense of life today. From a childhoo...

Whether we know it or not, economics shapes almost every part of our lives - where we live, whether we can afford children, how much time we have with the people we love, and even the choices we think are available to us. But most of us rarely stop to ask what economics is actually for. In this episode, Elizabeth Oldfield sits down with economist and Works in Progress editor Sam Bowman for a conve...

What does it mean to be visibly Muslim in British public life right now? Mehreen Khan has been living that question since she was eleven years old - when 9/11 turned her faith into something she had to defend. She's now Economics Editor at The Times, the first woman and first person of colour in the role, and one of the most outspoken Muslim voices in mainstream British journalism. We cover: •...

Hugo Rifkind has spent his career observing power. He also grew up inside it — and never quite felt he belonged there. In this episode, he talks about: • The Scottish boarding school where violence was a point of pride... until a public inquiry forced the question • About being Jewish in public life since October 7th, and what it felt like when the people his community relied on weren't there...

Michael Pollan tried psychedelics at 55. What he found changed everything he thought he knew. Michael is not a mystic or a guru. He is the kind of writer that scientists, doctors and serious intellectuals trust - someone who changed the way millions of people think about food, farming and the natural world. So when Michael Pollan tried psychedelics at 55 and came back saying the certainties had st...

What happens after winning Bake Off? Jasmine Mitchell joins us to talk about perfectionism, alopecia, self-image, and learning to be fully yourself in a world obsessed with image. Jasmine reflects on growing up in a home shaped by hospitality, losing her hair as a teenager, learning to let go of perfection, and the unexpected journey that took her from medical school to winning British Bake Off 20...

Nearly a decade into The Sacred, we’re still doing the same thing: having honest and curious conversations with people who see the world differently. We're wondering why - like the return of spring - seeking to understand another person at a deep level never seems to get old. There's something about learning to truly understand people outside our “tribe” that feels challenging and pleasurable all...

The world wasn’t built for everyone. Leah Libresco Sargeant on feminism, care, and the myth of the “neutral” human. Join our community of people listening curiously to different perspectives: https://www.youtube.com/@thesacredpodcast/videos Leah has spent her life following philosophy to its limits, from Kantian questions of moral truth to reckoning with human vulnerability. Her journey reveals wh...

What actually shapes the life you’re living - your own choices, or the ones you inherited? In this episode of The Sacred, we are with Dr Rangan Chatterjee exploring the moments that force our values to the surface - births, deaths and major life events - and how they can reset the direction of our lives. An Indian immigrant doctor, his father worked relentlessly to give his family opportunities —...

We spoke to Stig Abell on how to live if nothing is ultimately sacred. Elizabeth Oldfield and Stig explore detective fiction and our longing for justice, the consolations of books in an age of infinite scroll, the quiet crises many of us are living through, and whether “muddling along” might be the most honest way live. This is a conversation about meaning and what remains when you’re not sure the...

In this episode, Elizabeth Oldfield is joined by political theorist and author Sophie Lewis to explore one of the most provocative ideas: the abolition of the family. Reflecting on her own complicated adolescence, Sophie asks what it would mean to reorganise society around love and collective care rather than accumulation? Drawing on her book, Abolish the Family, Sophie argues that the nuclear fam...

In this episode of The Sacred, Elizabeth Oldfield is joined by Jo Colman - great-great-great grandchild of the founder of Colman’s Mustard and now Chief Mint Officer of the family business, Summerdown - to explore a radically different story about generational wealth, power, business and belonging. Jo reflects on growing up with deep security and love, how that shaped his sense of responsibility,...

Elizabeth Neumann, a former senior official in the Trump Administration, reflects on why she felt called to serve, what she witnessed from inside government, and how her commitment to integrity ultimately led her to step away. In this conversation, she and Elizabeth Oldfield reflect on how extremism takes root, the role of integrity in polarised times, and why love, accountability, and formation m...

In this episode Elizabeth Oldfield speaks with writer, environmentalist, and activist George Monbiot - a fiercely anti-establishment voice shaped by resistance, trauma, and a refusal to become what Britain’s elite institutions tried to make him. We discuss: - Why the language we use around the environment and climate change, isn't sufficient - Growing up with buried histories of English fascis...

In this special end-of-year reflection episode of The Sacred, we're slowing down and seeing the season out with some of Elizabeth's favourite poems. Take a moment to sit with darkness and light, to reflect on the year, and to rest in words that have carried us through conversations about grief, migration, identity, hope and moral courage. Elizabeth reads some of the poems that have steadie...

Elizabeth Oldfield speaks with Andrew Graystone about his role in uncovering the serial abuser John Smyth and the institutional cover-ups within the Church that kept the truth hidden. Andrew is a Writer, Broadcaster and Activist. He shares the story behind his new book Bleeding for Jesus and the hidden patterns that shape the lives of Christian leaders. He reflects on why institutions so often cov...

In this live episode of The Sacred, Elizabeth Oldfield sits down with Channel 4 journalist Cathy Newman to the moments that guided her toward investigative journalism and a lifelong commitment to seeking truth. They talk about: ✍️Investigative journalism and its role in holding power accountable ⛪ Investigating John Smyth's abuse in the Church of England ✖️Navigating public scrutiny, social m...

The world is overwhelming. Every day we’re bombarded with noise, outrage, and content designed to distract, numb, or divide us. It’s changing us...and not always for the better. We created the Sacred Podcast as a response to the chaos. It’s more than a podcast - it’s a space to slow down, reflect, and listen deeply. A place to practice empathy, curiosity, and understanding in a world that often re...