The Cult of the CIA
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The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. As an analyst, you're constantly hearing through training, you're the best of the best. You're the cream of the crop. This is where you deserve to be. Not only are you amazing because you're in the federal government, but you're in the best intelligence agency because CIA is better than everyone else.

And so you're like groomed. And I went through a whole identity crisis leaving the agency of who am I if I'm not a CIA officer? I was like, oh my God. And I think I DM'd you. The CIA is a cult.

This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm your host, Amanda Montell, author of the books Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism, and the forthcoming The Age of Magical Overthinking. Every week on the show, we pick a different fanatical fringe group from the cultural zeitgeist, from CrossFit to corporate America. And we analyze it, we make some jokes about it, we unpack it, pick it apart to try and answer the big questions.

This group sounds like a cult, but is it really?

And if so, which cult category does it fall into? A live your life, a watch your back, or a get the fuck out level cults? After all, cults are unavoidable in 21st century America. I personally believe that we are living in the cultiest era of all time. Everywhere you look from like a woo-woo wellness circle to the ways that people talk about their favorite celebrity to the wild political discourse that exists on social media,

to the corporate offices where people refer to their co-workers as their family. But the thing is that not all of the cultishness is equally bad. Some is kind of fun and fresh and flirty and silly and fringy, and some of it could kind of ruin your life. So that is what the show is all about, to chitty chat about modern day cultishness for better and for worse. We try not to take ourselves so seriously all the time, but it is my personal little humble belief that

There is not a single one of us out here who hasn't at least brushed up against some kind of cult. Today, we're discussing one of the most unique topics we've ever covered on this show. I'm fucking jazzed to share this interview with you. Today, we're talking about the cult of the CIA. Ooh, clandestine, secretive, special ops.

Clearly, I am not an expert in the subject of today, but it was fascinating to chat with our guest, who certainly is. She is a survivor of this cult. And to apply my little culty analysis to everything that she experienced, my guest today is named Christina Hillsberg, and she's a former CIA intelligence analyst. She's also married to a former CIA operations officer. If you find yourself already like, what the hell does any of that mean? You're not alone.

Thank you.

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The cult of the CIA is kind of a unique topic for us to discuss on this show because typically we talk about the cults that we all follow, cults that we see every day, whether it's like SoulCycle or a certain type of school like Montessori schools or medical school, stuff that maybe like doesn't look or seem like a destructive cult on the outside, but once you break it down, it low-key kind of is.

The CIA is one of these groups where, like, it's secretive by nature. I would have never thought to put it on our list of topics to discuss. Until in July of 2021, after this show had only been on the air for like a month, I received a DM from our guest today. She was like,

I'm former CIA. I read your book. I started listening to your show and holy shit, I've had this crazy realization that I was kind of in a cult and I would love to talk to you about it. And finally, finally, after all of these years, I got to get back in touch with her and share this conversation with you. So after she DMed me, Christina sent me this email. She went, hi, Amanda. Thanks for getting back to me on Instagram. After finishing your book, I'm realizing just how culty the CIA is.

Some initial things that come to mind are the extensive entrance process, aliases, secretive language, isolation from the outside world, and the way they use language to indoctrinate you and discourage you from leaving. The list goes on. My time at the CIA is still very much ingrained in my identity. For example, my husband and I incorporate what we learned there in our parenting approach.

So Christina is actually the author of a very interesting book called Licensed to Parent, How My Career as a Spy Helped Me Raise Resourceful, Self-Sufficient Kids. Since leaving her time in the CIA, Christina has become a raider and she's working on a new book too about women in the CIA and their very unique experiences. Anyway, back to the email, she said, I'd love to discuss this topic more in depth with you on your podcast if you're interested. So I thought, damn, like this podcast has only been on for four weeks, but this...

this lady understands the concept of this show even better than I do. It truly is about the groups in society that you might not think of as cults, but actually are. And so without further ado, I cannot wait to introduce you to this conversation. I had no idea that ex-CIA were even allowed to be as open as Christina was with me, but you're about to hear all about this cult, the cult of the CIA, to try and figure out, is this infamous, glamorous cult

secretive organization that plays such a big but invisible role in our everyday lives. Is it a cult? And if so, is it a live your life, a watch your back or get the fuck out? Let's find out. Here's Christina. Christina, welcome to Sounds Like a Cult.

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a long time coming. Could you please introduce yourself to the listeners and how you're connected to the cult of the CIA? Absolutely. So my name is Christina Hillsberg, and I am a former CIA intelligence officer. I was there for almost 10 years. I went in at 21 years old, and actually, I'm a linguist by background. So I am a super fan of yours. I have your book right here.

I have been like a believer since the beginning. I love this podcast. I'm so excited to be on. Thank you. It is so fun to see linguistics brought into the mainstream. And I wish that this had been happening, you know, years ago when I graduated. Oh, I will say it never occurred to me to call myself a linguist. I thought that was like very impostery because like

I have an undergraduate degree in it and I just write these books that are reported and of course there is social science behind them. But my publisher wanted to call me a linguist and whenever anyone would introduce me, they would be like, this is Amanda, she's a linguist. And I'd be like, no, no, no, I'm a linguistics groupie. That's what I would say. And then finally, when Word Slut was coming out, I did a book club that a bunch of linguists had put together. Oh, I love it. Oh my goodness. Right?

And I was talking to them about it and they sort of like gave me their blessing. They were like, you are making linguistics accessible. You can call yourself a linguist. And finally, I was kind of like, oh,

There are so many misconceptions about linguists too. Like the first question I'm guessing that you probably get too is, oh, how many languages do you know? And you're like, that's not actually what linguistics is. I mean, often linguists do learn other languages because we're so fascinated by it, but you do not have to be multilingual to be a linguist. No, it's the science of language. And my approach is, you know, the social science of language. I just want to sort of like back up and

ask you to define what even is the CIA and what do they do? So the CIA's mission is to collect foreign intelligence to keep America safe and Americans abroad. And so as part of that, there are several different aspects that go into it, different parts of the intelligence cycle. And so the operators who are in the field, at field stations who are collecting intelligence, that's coming back to Washington. Analysts are analyzing it, writing it in the president's daily brief book. And something that I think a

is that you have to be very objective at the CIA. You cannot politicize your analysis. So your job is to write something for the president that basically says, you know, this is what's likely to happen in this country. Here are opportunities for U.S. engagement. If the U.S. were to do this, this would happen. If the U.S. were to do that, that would happen, right? And then it's up to the president and policymakers to make policy.

Of course, if you've actually impacted policy with something you've written, that's a really great accomplishment and feels fantastic. And it's a great point on your performance review. But it's not our job to tell the president what to do. And I think for me, one of the things I sometimes struggled with is that you're often seeing horrible things that are happening. And the question for everything that you write, every piece of intelligence that you collect is always, why do we care? Why does this matter for America? Right?

And that can be hard because sometimes the answer is, well, there aren't any Americans there, but there are people dying and we should care. So it's your job to always find the angle of, well, the US could engage on this and play a leading role internationally. There's all these different ways you can kind of spin it and you can figure out how to do it as an analyst and show that angle. But it can be hard because sometimes you're just like, well, there isn't really a US angle to this, but I personally care about it. So that can be tricky. Cool.

cult of nationalism right there. Yes. So you would write things that the president would literally read with his eyes. Yes. So you write for the president's daily brief book. It goes to the president every morning and whatever members of his cabinet or her, I'm going to say her, even though we haven't had one yet, but I'm like, oh, some

And it's a combination of different lengths of articles. Every president has a different preference of what they like. I have preferences of who I liked to write for based on their style. Interesting. So your background is in linguistics. Yes. And then how did you come to work for the CIA? So not only linguistics, but specifically African languages. I was recruited right out of undergrad because I speak Swahili and Zulu. So I say that after saying linguists don't need to speak languages, but I just happen to know those. And what brought you to study those languages?

So I actually thought I was going to be doing something like the Peace Corps or documenting dying languages. Like that was the plan. Okay. And I had a Peace Corps interview and a CIA interview like within weeks of each other. The CIA interview, I did not even know who I was interviewing with. I just knew it was like a government agency. My parents were encouraging me to go. And I was kind of like, whatever. I even blew off the first interview. I went to Chicago to see Lady Smith Black Mambazo. Stop it. Like in Mean Girls? Yeah.

Yes, and Mean Girls. You love Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Yes. So I went to a Ladysmith Black Mambazo concert and it was worth it. The recruiter actually called me the next day and said, hey, because he had already read my resume because I had sent it forward. He said, I really want to meet with you tomorrow. I'm going to stay an extra day. And I kind of was like, whatever, I'll just do this.

But my experience in that interview was like leaps and bounds so much better than my experience with Peace Corps. You know, sometimes you just got to go with your gut. And I got offers from both. I knew that if I went to the CIA, there was no going back because once you join the CIA, you can never do the Peace Corps. If you do the Peace Corps first, you have to wait a period of time before you can do the CIA. And that's for good reason. Why? They don't want to –

put any Peace Corps volunteers in danger. They don't want to question the integrity of Peace Corps operations and missions. They don't want people to think that it's clandestine ops, right? So they want to keep a very clear separation between the two. Got it. Which makes a lot of sense. And I did know a lot of analysts who had done Peace Corps before and ended up there. So I started as an analyst because of my deep expertise on the region and

And then actually halfway through my career, I transitioned to the Directorate of Operations where I was actually meeting with assets and collecting foreign intelligence in the field. Are you allowed to explain what the fuck any of that means? Yeah. So basically, the Directorate of Operations, they consider it like the tip of the spear. And so you are going out and convincing people essentially to commit treason against their country to share with us important information that we deem crucial to national security.

And so you're basically forming a relationship with them, developing them over time, and then formally recruiting them to agree to a clandestine relationship with the CIA. And why would they do that? So people are motivated for lots of different reasons. Sometimes people will say money, but it's usually more than that. It can be ideology.

health reasons, kids they want to go to school in America, or there's so many different motivations. And so part of what you have to do is kind of understand people and what their vulnerabilities are and build that relationship. Oh my God. It's like being a journalist. Yeah. There are so many correlations. But that's pretty dark. Definitely cult behavior.

And so then as an analyst, you're actually analyzing all the intelligence that comes in and then you're distilling that for the president of the United States and other senior policymakers. So there's like different parts of the intelligence cycle. So I've done both of those parts.

And I guess I should say the reason why we're here, drum roll, is that as I was reading your book and then listening to the early episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, I was like, oh my God, the CIA is a cult. And I think I DM'd you. I slid into your DMs, as the young kids say these days. Yeah.

and said, you know what? The CIA is a cult. So I started taking off the things and I even like wrote my list here. Like there's an extensive entrance process. We use aliases. There's so much secretive language that people don't understand. And you're really isolated from the outside world. Like I spent my 20s there and

And everyone I hung out with, everyone I dated was all agency because you're there most hours of the day. You can't talk about what you do with other people. So you're like in this bubble, which is kind of a funny term because that's also what they call the auditorium at headquarters is the CIA bubble. But you're like literally in a bubble. And there's also a lot of love bombing going on. So like as an analyst –

You're constantly hearing through training, you're the best of the best. You're the cream of the crop. This is where you deserve to be. Not only are you amazing because you're in the federal government, but you're in the best intelligence agency because CIA is better than everyone else.

And so you're like groomed, right, from the very beginning. Now, the director of operations, on the other hand, is sort of like, we will make you fail and then you will learn from those failures. So it's a little bit different in that training and that's hard and humbling. But the idea behind that is for operations, they want you to experience failure in a training environment so that everything you experience in the field, you know, is easy compared to that. So they really put you through the ringer.

But there's a lot of just telling you you're the best. Then it also moves into, it's a big scary world out there. You don't want to go into the private sector. Stay here where we take care of you. Oh my God. It's like fundamentalist Mormonism. Yeah, exactly. And if you go there right out of college and you know nothing else, the idea of leaving

is very scary. My husband was also agency. He was a case officer for his whole career doing ops in the field in overseas CIA stations. He served in those. We met and we ended up leaving just for personal reasons because he had three kids from his first marriage. We couldn't take them on an overseas tour and we weren't willing to go without them. That meant we were resigning and

basically starting brand new lives where you have to learn what you can tell people. You have to learn how to transfer those skills, which I do firmly believe that CIA has the best training. Like it's top notch. And I think that people who have been through CIA training can essentially do any career. I do believe that. The question is whether or not they can make the jump because you're essentially starting over.

And I went through a whole identity crisis leaving the agency of who am I if I'm not a CIA officer? Like they had taught me that that was who I was. And it took me years, I think, to build my confidence back up. And I think that that's a really interesting culty aspect.

Absolutely. Was that like unbelievably surreal? Because there are so many TV shows and movies about the CIA. Like, how does it feel to be there? You must be filled with this sense of romance around it because like you've seen it portrayed on TV so many times.

Yeah. I mean, it's not as glamorous and exciting as you see on TV, but you really do feel like you're part of this elite club, which is one of the reasons why it makes it so hard to leave. Okay. So did you and your husband meet in CIA training? We did actually. We met in a training course. I spotted him from across the room. And this is like so ridiculous, but I sort of like pictured a life with him, which sounds like really weird. It always

happens this way when you're like in an incredibly intimate environment. Like it's the proximity aspect to attraction. Like when you're in a little tiny cult with someone, suddenly they look, you know, all the more dreamy. And it was like, there was something about him. Like he was wearing this like Filson blazer. He's got like a beard. He looked really like outdoorsy. I'm like, yeah, I feel like I could go on adventures with this guy.

And I so have. So it's funny. But yeah, that was our story. And we've rebuilt our careers since having left. And I think enjoying the freedoms that come from not being there. From not being in a cult. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. So they have a lot of control over who you talk to, who you're friends with, who you sleep with. I mean, try like meeting a foreigner and sleeping with them and then filling out paperwork the next day to tell your boss who you slept with. Yeah.

Oh, my God. So, okay, I have so many fucking questions. First of all, what was training like? What do they do? I'm like picturing someone like going through Batman training. Like, what are you learning? Yeah.

So it varies. So of course, the analytic training is lots of writing and briefing, which as a writing nerd and a language nerd, I loved it. And then the clandestine training, you're doing things like surveillance detection training, which is planning routes that can be two, three, four hours long. You're memorizing every single turn and you have multiple stops along the way and we call them cover stops. And then you have a lot of

And you essentially know what street corner, what turn you're at, like down to the minute, within a two-minute window. And the idea is that you are trying to identify whether a foreign country would be surveilling you if they're following you because you are on your way to meet an asset. And if you were to bring that country's service with you, you're putting your asset and their family in danger. You're putting yourself in danger. And we take it really seriously because the people who choose to work with the agency are doing so often at great risk.

And so we don't want to intentionally bring them. We call them friends to the meeting with us. So you're doing all these turns to determine whether or not someone's following you over time, distance and change in direction. And so you have to have these cover stops. It'll look like a normal person because you can't let on that they're following you, right? So you purposely don't go through yellow lights because that just pisses them off.

So we go through this rigorous training where we're actually being followed. They have instructors and stuff like teams following you with multiple vehicles changing out and doing multi-mode. You're on foot, then you're on the train. And it is really intense. And they purposely...

overwhelm you to see how you respond in a stressful environment. And like I said, the clandestine training is meant to make you fail because there's no better way they believe to learn than failing because it humbles you. You'll never make the same mistake again. And I was the class example for one of my surveillance detection runs where I called ghost, which is like uncle, like I give up.

Yeah, because I simply wasn't confident. And if I was in the field, I would have aborted. And so that was what I did. But there was no one there. And probably if I had just turned around, I would have seen there was no one there. You're not supposed to do that. Okay. And so it's very rigorous, but there's all sorts of training. They basically create a fictitious environment down there where you are meeting with instructors who are like former case officers, mostly like old men, gray bearded.

And they're role-playing pretending to be foreign assets and you're having mock receptions, diplomatic receptions where you have a target, you have to go bump them and build rapport and get that second meeting. And so it's a lot of role-playing and it can be really fun.

I'm sure it can, you know. Famously, a lot of very fun make-believe happening in cults. So obviously, I cannot help but notice all of the buzzwords that you're using, the like specialized terminology like asset and intelligence and friend and

It sounds like such a textbook example of cultish language, you know, like vocabulary that's really just there in part to build solidarity among insiders, rally them around that collective mission to get them to fully immerse their identity in the CIA while also confusing outsiders. It does a lot. And it's fascinating to me that you're still using it so naturally.

Could you unpack how the CIA language contributes to its cultishness? Yeah. Their specific terminology, we call it tradecraft, right? That's probably also a buzzword. For sure. And also here's another interesting thing. We use pseudonyms, which are different than aliases. So an alias is if you're actually going on an op and you have like your own alias passport or driver's license. Like I had alias docs, we call them. And it was a real license with my picture, a different social security number, a different name, the real deal.

And that's when you're actually going out and on and off meeting with an asset or doing whatever. But a pseudonym is something we would use on the system because you would not want your name in writing on like cables you wrote or anything or emails or anything on the system because you're trying to separate and protect your cover. That's another buzzword. Totally. So people actually, even though you're not supposed to use pseudonyms like aliases, people become known in the building as their pseudonyms.

And so it's usually you end up calling people by their last name, which is not their name. Right. So it's so funny because to this day, people are like, oh, did you know so-and-so? And you realize that people who you would have considered legitimately good friends, that you don't actually know their name.

Dude, it's nuts. I mean, it is a dead ringer for so many cults. Like in the Healthy, Happy, Holy organization, which you might remember because it's like the first cult that I talk about in Cultish, everybody as like a symbol of their new identity within 3HO would be assigned a new

name, a new middle name, a new last name. It wasn't just like a fun thing or a thing that they needed to do practically. It was a religious symbol in a sense. Oh, yeah. It was doing real religious work in terms of separating themselves from the outside world. And I'm curious about

terminology like asset to refer to a human being. You know, we did an episode on the cult of med school and there's a little bit of dehumanization that happens from doctor to patient just to compartmentalize, you know? And I'm wondering, like, is there any dehumanization of those who are not in the CIA that goes on with language? It's such an important part when you're recruiting an asset that you actually build a genuine connection with them.

And we're not supposed to keep in touch with assets after we turn them over. That's kind of a no-no, but some of us do. Oh, man. What a mindfuck that you're supposed to become sincerely close to this so-called asset, but also manipulate them and then just let them go like nothing ever happened. That's nuts. Also, asset is such a loaded euphemism, but it kind of just means spotless.

spy, right? Yeah. Asset is interchangeable with agent. And so when people would call me an agent, that's actually not accurate. So people who work at CIA are CIA officers, intelligence officers. So if you say agent, that would be an asset. That would be like a foreigner who we've recruited to spy for us. Got it. They get it wrong in all the TV shows and movies, but I think it's just so far gone that people have just been like, yeah, whatever.

This is something that was hard for me because you really have to be someone who can live in the gray. And historically, I've always been a very black and white person, but I've moved to be comfortable in the gray because I had to because I was doing Klan S&O. But the idea that you are somehow forming a genuine relationship with someone while also assessing their vulnerabilities, sometimes the mental gymnastics, I'll be honest, was sometimes difficult for me.

Yeah. I mean, that's something that people within cults have to do all the time because there's an ends justify the means philosophy. You know, it's like this feels really bad intuitively what I'm doing right now. But there's a higher purpose. There's an end game. And someone higher ranked than me told me I have to do this. And I've totally bought into the mission. Mm-hmm.

And, you know, of course, in some cults, that mission is like really, really nefarious and very fringe, not super relatable. Like in Heaven's Gate, for example, you know, their mission was like, we want to escape the corruption of Earth by boarding a spacecraft to the kingdom of God. You know, we can't all hashtag relate to that. But other culty missions are much more mainstream, like the American Dream.

And in a cult like the CIA, you know, whether or not the mission is nefarious is it's more a gray area. You know, it depends on what you believe. It's up for debate, right? People have pretty strong opinions. Yeah. Like we're kind of bred from birth.

to have this very cult-like superiority complex about America in general. And the CIA in particular needs its employees to, pardon the cliche, but drink that Kool-Aid 110%. You know, it doesn't leave a lot of room to get too existential about America's role in the world or to interrogate the mission too much. But if you do, there will always be buzzwords and catchphrases and...

rituals within a cult to put that cognitive dissonance to bed. So let me ask, were there moments when, say, you did have to like fill out paperwork after like fucking some random person where you were just like, I don't know if I can do this anymore? Yeah, I definitely had moments like that. Okay, so let me clarify, you get one freebie. Yay!

So if it's a one night stand, you're in the clear. It's only if it's a close and continuing contact. So if you're never going to see the person again, then like, don't even worry about it. I definitely had the experience of meeting someone and having a bit of a romance and not being able to say what I did for a living, which is kind of wild. That sounds fun. What would you say you did? Would you do the classic thing where you're like, I'm a flight attendant? No, it just depends what your cover is for that specific mission, right? Yeah.

So you just kind of have to live that. But some people I think have more fun than others. I mean, I would go on trips with girlfriends and sometimes we would just like come up with crazy, ridiculous cover stories like on the way to Vegas. Like, let's just tell people we're teachers. What a crazy story. Yeah. Like we're so –

wild. We're just like wild teachers in Vegas for the weekend. Because I think for us, it was like we wanted to just sort of feel like normal people too, you know, because you do feel like you're part of this really weird world. And so it would be nice to just kind of meet people and not have to say anything like that. And those like girlfriends that you'd be going to Vegas with, they were people within the CIA too. Yes, everyone. But I mean, the reason for like having to report things like relationships with foreigners, and we get back to like the ends justify the means, right? Because they're constantly looking for counterintelligence threats.

They want to make sure that you're not sleeping with some guy who actually is a foreign intel service and is just trying to recruit you. And so there's a reason behind all of it. But you were asking if that was something I struggled with. Yeah. I mean, I worked on Somalia for some time. And we were tracking the mastermind behind the 1998 embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam in Nairobi.

And I just remember walking in my car and thinking, what am I doing here? Like, how did I get here? How did I get so far from wanting to do humanitarian work to like talking about tracking terrorists and like civilian casualties and this and that, you know?

And I just remember being like, I'm not going to be here forever. So I didn't know how I was going to leave and I didn't know under what circumstances, but I always envisioned myself walking over that seal on the floor, taking one last look at those stars on the wall and leaving it all behind. Wow.

And I did. And what's so great is that I actually got to go back to headquarters a few months ago because I'm writing my next book and it's about women at the CIA and the fight for gender equality from 1960 to present day. And so I got to go back to interview some current women. Of course, they censored everything they told me, but I got to be in the building. Yeah. And I think you'll appreciate this.

On the way in, I was like blaring some music and the Kesha song Praying came on. Okay. Bear with me. I belted this song out because there is a line that says like, you told me I'd be nothing without you. You were wrong and the best is yet to come. And I was just like clutching my steering wheel, like singing it out. Like, yes.

And so I go into headquarters and I have these meetings and it was just the best full circle moment for me. Because while they do still have some control over my life, because whatever I write, I have to put through their review board to make sure I don't disclose any classified information. Everything you write, including fucking tweets? No, like my books and that kind of thing or articles or things like that.

that. So I'm not quite out from under their thumb, but for the most part I am. And so it was just like a grateful circle moment to like talk to women there and then just fucking leave. Yes. And like leave them behind. I went to the gift shop. I bought everything I could ever want because I'm like, I'm not fucking coming back here.

So it was good. Next time you listen to that song, listen to those fucking lyrics. Oh, okay. I will. You know, actually, this reminds me, I should put together like a sounds like a cult playlist for songs to listen to when you get out of a cult. Oh, I love it. And actually, this one woman I interviewed said,

that when she left the agency, she was there about the same timeframe I was, like about 10 years, same age range. We didn't know each other until now. And she said, I mourned it like I would mourn a lover. And I was like, oh, that's so good. And I still relate. Yeah. Well, this is why

even a story like yours, as specific as it is, is so relatable because almost everyone has a story or an experience of leaving a job that they thought was their entire life and their entire identity or a romantic partner or in the case of Kesha, an exploitative, what was it, producer? Yes, yes. Or...

Mm-hmm.

It takes a lot of fortitude and conviction to leave, but it feels so good when you do. I wish there was a gift shop for my toxic ex-boyfriend. I could go back to headquarters and get a teddy bear that says, bitch.

Fucking sucks. Have a good day. What's so great is I got this mug when I was there. It had the agency seal on it and said, you know, Central Intelligence Agency. And it was like, just like I loved the shape of it. I was like, oh, this is going to feel like really good in my hands. Like I want this to be like my new writing mug. So I get it. And then I get home and I pull it out of the box. And on the back of it, it says, in God we trust, in all others we monitor. And I was like, well, fuck.

Oh my fucking God. And I was like, oh, why did I write this? Read the fine print, people. Right? Right?

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So that brings me to like, I want to know, were there any chance rituals, crazy little rules at the CIA that maintained its cult-like air? Oh gosh, probably. I don't know about chance. Yeah.

We love a good chant. I love a good chant too. I think it's just a lot of rite of passage like through specific training exercises, like specific task forces. It's very culty to get like your op certification at the farm. So that's another buzzword. It's so funny because I said the farm the other day to my therapist and she was like, I'm sorry, what? You mean like a farm? And I

And I said, no, I mean the CIA's covert operational facility. She's like, oh, right. Like, I should know that. I say this in cultish and I like really believe it that cult language is so powerful and sinister because it's the first thing you pick up

and it's the last thing you let go. Like I'm sure it's having an effect on your understanding of what you went through even now. It's so clever in that way, like creating a special culty vocabulary. Well, and it creates a bond with other people who have left too because you speak this special language. And I think that's similar, you know, with folks who've left fundamentalist religions. We could talk about that on another day.

I think there are some pros and cons. And of course, it is very culty and there are some hard things about working there. But I will say that I do still believe in the mission. So is this sounding like a total fundamentalist that doesn't want to let go? I think it's a really noble mission. For me, I could picture myself one day talking about it in the rearview mirror. So I just knew that it just wasn't going to be me for the long haul. But I also feel like I have a special connection with

the women who have served at the agency, particularly writing this book about women. I get to interview – I mean, I'm like calling women in their 90s. I don't even know if they're still alive. And they're like thrilled to death to like talk about – well, hopefully not to death, but not yet – to talk about their ops that they haven't talked about in like 50 years or whatever. Yeah. And what's interesting is that

that there are all these shared experiences and it's that language that connects us. Yeah, actually, so this makes me think, speaking of women, there are these creepy, abusive gender dynamics in most cults. How is being in the CIA different for women

like in a culty bad way. Women make up nearly 50% of the organization now. Of course, it varies according to what part of the agency you're in. But the Me Too movement is finally landing at the agency. The past couple years, things have been coming out and it's really been ramping up in recent weeks.

And it's a pervasive culture of sexual harassment and sexual assault. If they want to keep women, they're going to have to do something about this culture because it started as an old boys club and that has kind of continued through the years. And the view for many, many years was that if you reported an incident, it was career suicide. Yeah. But that's changing.

And there is a woman who reported an assault that took place last year and her assailant was actually convicted in August, which was a groundbreaking decision. And she is actually now suing the agency for witness tampering and discouraging her from reporting the crime to law enforcement. So it is really coming to a head. Her making that decision has now sparked controversy.

a flood of women who have come in to share their experiences with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees who are now investigating it. So it's huge. How fucking wild is it that women have to go like all the way up the legal system just to teach men that they should not assault?

Right? And the fact that it's these men in these positions of power that have taken advantage of it for so many years. What I don't want to see happen is for women to stop working there because we need them. There's such an important part to the mission. The way a woman handles an asset is completely different than a man. We are empathetic. We notice things that they don't notice. We're better at building relationships with them and truly caring about them.

And also we can operate in environments where men can't. We can operate in what we call hard target environments because historically the local intelligence services in some of these countries like Russia, for example, they would not even, we call it surveil, but follow a woman because it would never dawn on them that a woman could be doing a clandestine operation.

So we can blend into the background. We can be the wallpaper. We can get things done. And they have no idea. Make oppression work for you. Yes. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

People underestimate female cult leaders. I'm telling you, like, mother God, hello? I would 100% personally fall for a woman love bombing me over a man any day. This leads me to a question that I really wanted to ask as well, which is like, how is power structured there? Because in the everyday cults that we cover on the show, there isn't

always the structure of like a man at the top surrounded by a gaggle of like pretty white women, you know, like you see in Jonestown or NXIVM and then you have like all the followers below. Sometimes power is structured a little bit more invisibly. But what does that look like in the CIA?

So in 2018, the CIA had its first female director, also had its first female director of operations, which actually is really important because that means that she's basically the chief spy. We're coming from a time where men used to say women cannot be case officers. They're not allowed to be. And so it took decades for that to change.

But the problem that we continue to see is that although nearly 50% of the organization is women now, when you start to get to upper levels of senior management, there is a drop-off.

off. Some of that is attributed to women have kids. They can't do a war zone tour because they're nursing their baby. And so it's really themes that I think women in any line of work can relate to, the things that tend to fall on women. And we saw a lot of that during the pandemic, women who were leaving their job to stay home and homeschool their kids, not men. And so we see a lot of that at the agency at the upper levels. When you do find women at the upper levels of management,

they're almost always women who are alone. Maybe they're married. If they have kids, it's their husband's kids from another marriage and they're older or they don't have kids. And so a lot of us, myself included, kind of looked up and looked around and thought, yeah, that's not really what I want. I mean, this reminds me of the power structure of so many groups that we've discussed on this show. I just recorded an episode on the cult of Amazon. Oh, I worked there too. Oh, look at that. Cult hop

I'm just like, oh, yeah. I actually have wondered, like, what does it say about my personality that I've been in so many things that seem like a cult? Because I went to Amazon right after the agency, actually. I think you like systems. I mean, like the CIA, Amazon, these are very, like, systematic. But now I think I'm like –

at a stage where I just reject anything that feels like that. Anything that feels like it's remotely like the patriarchy or men trying to control me, I'm just like, preaching to the choir. Wait, I totally didn't even get to ask. How big is the CIA? How many people are there in it? I don't think they released those numbers. I mean, I was just on the phone with them yesterday because I was trying to get some facts for the book and they're like, oh yeah, we can't tell

Whoa. I'm like, what about percentages? Oh, yeah, we can't tell you that either. I'm like, oh, Jesus fucking Christ. Do you get the feeling that it's like weirdly small? No. I mean, I think it's probably enormous. I mean, you can like make judgments that like, yeah, there's probably not the same amount of people on Burkina Faso as there are on like, you know, Russia. Okay, got it. No, it must be fucking huge. Yeah.

I mean, who does know that stuff? Like who is the wizard behind the curtain? I mean, I think a lot of people, they're just very careful about what they share and what they don't share. Okay. So what I'm hearing is that because of the secretive nature of the organization, it being so siloed, the director not even being as important as the director of operations, these people not really having a heavy role in your day to day necessarily. There's kind of

like not one cult leader tyrant in the CIA, which I guess is good. It's really like your department that's your cult. Yeah. Next question. What actually was the experience of leaving? Like, can you walk me through what that looked like? And then how did you...

start to build your life after that. So leaving is actually a lot easier than you would think. Okay. Green flag. And I was actually in a field station when I left. So I wasn't able to do – I did like the final walk over the seal like when I was back at headquarters like well before. So I remember like I just put in my notice and it was kind of like you've been feeling like you can't leave for so long. And then you do. And then you walk out the door and you realize I'm fucking replaceable.

Yeah. You feel like you are this important, you know, integral part. And then you walk out the door and you're like, huh, because they don't need me. You know? So it's easier to leave once you make the decision to go. You put in your resignation, your notice. If you're in the field, they'll send a cable back.

And, you know, you give them everything, all your alias docs. You don't get to keep any of that fun stuff and concealment devices. Those are the things that you would carry with secret compartments to hide your Intel or gadgets or whatever in. And it can be a purse or it could be a piece of furniture. We had a really cool piece of furniture that we wanted to keep and they wouldn't let us.

We said, we'll buy it from you. We just really want to keep it. We love it. So there are exit costs, but they're in the form of furniture. But there are other exit costs too. I mean, it sounds like when you leave that whole social group that meant everything to you for the longest time, you have to kind of leave them behind. Yeah, it's tricky. And I do keep in touch with some friends from there, but it's very limited. And

I'm an author now. And so the people who have chosen to remain friends with me have had to take some extra steps in order to be allowed to see me. Once you're out, like when I went back to headquarters, I'm like you, me, same, same-ing like with these women, but I'm also getting a very strong sense that like I am no longer one of them. Like,

I am the outsider here. I have to be escorted through the building. Right. You know, they walked me right by the new sexual assault prevention office. There's like a big sign outside the door. And I'm like, what sexual assault victim is going to walk into that room? I'm like, isn't this place like founded on secrets? Like this is not discreet, guys. Oh my God. So then you start to ask like, what's the purpose of this office? It'd be like people who were assigned to go to anger management therapy having to walk through a door with a big sign on the top that says assholes who punch people.

Welcome in. Yeah, you're like waving to everyone as you go in like, hey.

Yeah. Well, and it kind of seems like because your life and your language are so controlled, once you leave, you don't truly, truly have 100% of your freedom back. Are there things that you simply cannot reveal right now? Yes. You know, I try to write in a way that like I feel like I have a pretty good sense of what I can and can't say, but you never know. They might consider something more sensitive and you don't always agree. But at the end of the day, you've signed the secrecy agreement. So...

Oh my God. I think it's probably safe to say that any organization that makes you sign something called a secrecy agreement and has you think that that is not only normal, but an honor is a cult. You know, when you're 21 years old and you have no idea what you're doing and what you're getting yourself into, but you signed it. Here's something we haven't even talked about, the polygraph. I mean, if that's not cult-like, I don't know what is. Talk about a traumatic experience. Wait, you have to go through lie detector tests?

Yes, in order to get in. And it's like extensive. My first one was four hours long and I failed miserably. But aren't lie detector tests bullshit? Yes, but they're so good at like...

Just screwing with you. Totally screwing with you. Oh my God. Giving a bullshit lie detector test? That is a genius cult leader move. I have not heard of that one before. I want to steal that. So what happened? So I had studied in Africa, of course, in undergrad, and it stopped in Amsterdam on the way home at 20 years old. So what does a 20-year-old want to do in Amsterdam on a long layover?

I shared a pot muffin with like three other people. I will say I did not have any understanding because it really fucked me up and I wasn't sure I was going to make it back to the airport and it was pretty terrifying. So I don't recommend that. So of course I share this in the polygraph and then it became, well, you must smuggle drugs from Columbia. How do we know that you're not a drug smuggler? I'm like, I don't know.

Oh my God. Like, well, how many other times did you do it? But then they're like messing with you, right? Because they're like, oh, I see there's something else here that you're not telling me. And you grow up with like Catholic guilt. And so you're like going over it and thinking like, okay, there's got to be something. Let me think of something. And they're like, oh yeah, there was that one time I was a Delta Todd Delta. And I think I took a drag off of something. And they're like, see, you've been lying.

Oh, man. I've been thinking this whole time, low key. I wonder if listeners have been too. Could I be in the CIA? But if I had to remember every little puff I'd ever taken in my life, no. Disqualified. It's really fucked up because I remember he also was like, listen, Christina, it's Billy's birthday. And Billy's mom made him a cake with blue icing on it. And Billy saw the cake and he took his finger and he just licked it.

And then he went over to his mom and his mouth was all blue. And she said, Billy, did you lick the cake? And Billy said, no. But she saw the blue icing all over his face. So Christina, why don't you just tell me all the times that you smoked pot? Oh my God. Yes. I was crying. So I went to McDonald's afterwards because as you know, I love Diet Coke from McDonald's. And I go through the drive-thru and I'm like, bomb.

bawling. And I'm like, oh, I have a happy meal. And I'm thinking like, I'm never going to get called back. I have like diarrhea for a month after this, like so like anxious. So I did go back the next day. And then that day I got like good cop and he's like, I'm going to help you get through this.

And so somehow against all odds, this pot muffin eating linguist made it. Oh my God. Into the CIA. So the funny thing is that once you get in, you realize it's all bullshit. And so you have to do a poly like every so often. So I remember my last one, I actually fell asleep with my eyes open because that's how much I didn't give a fuck.

Because I'm like, I don't have anything to hide. Like I'm not selling secrets to the Russian. I was up late on the phone. I'm tired. I'm staring at a white wall. And the guy's like, I think I got enough to read on you despite your dozing. But next time, try to get a better night's sleep. And I leave and I'm just like –

Amazing. What vindication. Dude, this might be a fucked up comparison, but everything you're describing in like the mind games, it reminds me of theater school. You're a theater nerd too. Okay. Yeah. I don't like to reveal this, but in the spirit of vulnerability, before I became a linguistics major, I did spend a regrettable semester as a theater major at NYU. You did? I did. I did.

And I mean, similar to sadistic CIA bad cops, no one likes to fuck with you and make you feel like shit and break you down to build you up more than an acting teacher. Oh, really? Oh, my goodness. I don't know this. I'm glad I didn't go that route, though. I wouldn't have survived. It was super culty. But I reflect on it like...

the military plus also kindergarten because everything you're doing is like so stupid but there is a very militaristic hierarchy and you're led to believe that like acting is the most important thing in the entire world and if you leave you'll be no one yeah that's similar same same yeah stakes and consequences different attitude the same okay so obviously

or maybe not obviously, not all cults are 100% bad or else no one would join or stay. You obviously derived some admirable skills and some juicy stories from your time in the CIA. And so I'd love to hear about like how you managed to take the good of what you gathered in the CIA and apply it to your life now while leaving the bad behind. So when I met my husband, I was really impressed with his three kids because they were way cooler than I was. I was in my late 20s at the time.

And they were just really well-rounded. They had so many interests. They were really mature for their ages. They were six, eight, and nine at the time. And I realized that he was actually taking some of the skills that he had learned at the farm, the CIA's covert training facility, and applying them to parenting. It's just really exposing them to the world and other cultures as well. And that was particularly hard during the pandemic.

And so we've got like a subscription box to have like food from different countries. And we would use that as an opportunity to teach our kids to try different foods and learn about different countries. So there are lots of different ways that we do this, but then it's also in terms of preparing them for emergencies, right? Because we are forced with the reality that the world can be very dangerous, particularly for our kids. We're sending our kids off to school every day, hoping that there won't be a school shooting, which is something that I wish we didn't have to worry about, right?

And so we talk to our kids about these things from a young age and we talk to them how to do something called get off the X. Like if something happens, the X is danger. You want to move away from it as quickly as possible. You do not want to stay there because the longer you stay on the X, the more likely it is you will be harmed.

And so there are concepts like that that we teach our kids with the idea being we're not always going to be there to protect them and we want them to be able to think critically. And that's one of the main things you learn in all aspects of CIA training is critical thinking skills and thinking on your feet and not relying too much on technology because technology can fail you. And so we kind of took that good stuff and, you know, left kind of the more smarmy stuff. I love the takeaway of like,

Think for yourself. Think on your feet. Don't rely too much on technology. No matter what your life looks like or what you're up to, those are words to fucking live by. Absolutely. Okay, now we're going to play a little game. It's just a little round of Would You Rather, Cult of the CIA edition. Oh, great. Okay. So I've put together some scenarios. You know how this works.

First round. Would you rather be stuck in a room with Carrie Matheson from Homeland for a day or be stuck in a room with Charles Manson for a day? Oh, I'm going with Carrie Matheson, although she is pretty.

She's a lot. Yeah, she is a lot. But I love Claire Danes. Me too. Right? I just rewatched Romeo and Juliet. Oh my gosh. Informative for me. Same. The aquarium scene, I mean, doesn't get much better than that. I know. We do stan. Round number two. Would you rather have to go undercover as a spy in Russia for one week or have to live on a fundamentalist Mormon compound for one year? Ah.

I'm going Mormon. That is telling. Wait, I have to ask, why is it called intelligence? Why don't they just call it information? I don't know. That's a good question.

good question. It's fucking culty. It's so dumb. I remember clocking that. It sounds smarter. Like that is cultish language. It's not there for a purpose. It's just there for elitism. No, it's true. Well, and if you think about it, like we call it humant, right? Human intelligence. So what you're collecting as a case officer is from other humans, right? So it's humant.

But it's also just like what someone told you. Oh my God. But like we make it sound like this is human. But it's really like, oh, I was meeting this guy like in this ops meeting in this restaurant. Like he told me that the foreign minister wants to do X, Y, Z. But now that's human. Okay. So that transitions perfectly into the next round. Would you rather only have to speak in CIA code for the rest of your life or only speak in empty new age buzzwords for the rest of your life?

Oh my gosh. Okay, what can I use if I'm using empty new age buzzwords? You know how they're always talking about like paradigm shift, higher vibration. Oh, no.

You can't do that. Hard pass. I'm going with CIA terminology. CIA code is so cool. It is fucking cool. It's like no wonder that everyone loves to adopt it and keeps it forever because it like it slaps. Okay, last round. Would you rather be interrogated by a CIA bad cop for six hours or be mind fucked by a notorious cult leader for a commensurate amount of time?

Ooh, like years? Are we talking? Just a few hours. Ooh. I'm going to go. You know my fascination with cults, so I'm going to go with option two. Yeah. Wouldn't that be fun? I would love to be a guinea pig. Just because it's so interesting. So fascinating. And I've already done number one, basically. Exactly. No, you've got to spread your wings. Do your worst, teal swan. Need to find my next cult. We'll help you. We'll offline about that over at Coke. Yes.

So now I'm going to pose the question that is posed at the end of every episode of Sounds Like a Cult. Christina, out of the three cult categories, live your life, watch your back, and get the fuck out. What do you think the cult of the CIA falls into? Ooh, I'm going to go with watch your back.

I gave this a lot of thought before because it still works for a lot of people. And if everyone got the fuck out, then we would all be screwed. So we need them. For me personally, I think it was a get the fuck out. But I think like for everyone else, it should just be like who's still in like watch your back because they do have some phrases. They eat their own young. That's like a phrase that people say in the building. And you just hope it's not you. The other phrase is the building doesn't love you back. So I think it's a watch your back. Yeah.

Yes, for sure. I think it's like one of the most unique watch your backs we've ever covered on the show. But from what I've gathered today, yeah, not for everyone. But indeed, if you're up in there, the CIA, if you couldn't tell already, watch your back. Incredible. Christina, thank

you so much for joining me for pitching yourself to be on the show this has been one of my favorite interviews to date if folks want to keep up with you and your writing where can they find you they can find me on instagram at christina hillsberg and on my website christinahillsberg.com and my next book should be out sometime in 2025 you know publishing goes so slow so hopefully we'll have an actual date soon and

Hell yeah. I can't wait to read it. And I'm so excited for your next book as well. Thank you. I mean, same. It's like my guts on a platter in like a way I'm really proud of. So anyway, thank you. Well, that's our show. Thanks so much for listening. Stick around for a new cult next week. But in the meantime, stay culty. But not too culty.

Sounds Like a Cult is hosted and produced by Amanda Montell and edited by Jordan Moore of The Podcabin. Our theme music is by Casey Cole.

This episode was made with production help from Katie Epperson. Thank you as well to our partner, All Things Comedy. And if you like the show, please feel free to check out my books, Word Slut, A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language, Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism, and the forthcoming The Age of Magical Overthinking, Notes on Modern Irrationality. If you're a fan of Sounds Like a Cult, I would really appreciate it if you'd leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

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