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### debunking-jordan-cockburn *originally posted:* apr 2025 lately ive taken to rating psychics and mediums on youtube- yes, youtube. im not planning to list their names. if you think psychic abilities and mediums are nonsense, there you go, jordan cockburn is nonsense because he claims to be a medium- mission accomplished. piece of cake. if you are open to the possibility that a "spirit world" or "universal intelligence" exists and can be communicated with, youll have to rate cockburn (the "ck" is silent) on his merits and consistency. thats a bit trickier. when i rate people on consistency, i dont hold them to being right about everything. no one is right about everything. if the pattern of change is from being less informed to more informed, if the pattern is one of progress, thats not a problem- its a good thing. in a perfect world, we would all move in the direction of being better informed. inconsistency that raises more and more questions about someones honesty however, is another matter. people who are dishonest can tell stories all the time, which appear to be consistent and reasonable at first. over time, the narrative begins to fall apart and fall on its face. this is the pattern ive perceived with cockburn. but suppose you want to find merit in his message. cockburn is one of the most prolific mediums on youtube, its difficult to do a search without him turning up. he has more than 200 videos, of which ive watched a substantial number, including all of his "class" videos where he "teaches" you to become a medium. if that material interests you, you can certainly watch his classes. if you find him incredibly repetitive, even boorish, and would like a simpler route to the same information, i think you could probably replace his entire channel with a Single Book- "beginning mediumship workbook: how to develop your mediumship skills" by carole anne. i dont know, havent spoken with the author (just like cockburn, who ive never interacted with) or anyone else who has interacted with the author, as far as i know. its actually the first book ive looked at that is focused on mediumship, and it appears to cover 90% of what cockburn does. for the rest of the 10%, maybe a few side topics like mirror scrying can be picked up elsewhere. every topic that cockburn treats is treated as simply as a dictionary definition, and carole annes book is also very simple and probably fairly shallow. its meant as a beginners introduction, but despite being a book (a fairly short and straghtforward one) i would say it takes less time to get to the point than cockburns videos. im not against breaking concepts down as simply as possible- its cockburns claim to fame, if he has any. when i say he takes longer to get to the point than carole anne, i mean that almost every video he makes seems to hammer down every point he makes in every video. youll look up a video about scrying, or why you dont have to be afraid of spirits, and he will rant about every other "topic" hes covered. to make a culinary metaphor, its like if you order a salad, a sandwich and dessert, and the salad has half-slices of bread, mustard, mayonnaise and ketchup, and bits of chocolate and whipped cream. the sandwich has too much lettuce, and is topped with nuts and a cherry. and the dessert has little bits of cold cut turkey slices and cucumber. its not a crime for instructional videos to draw connections to other topics, but with cockburn its completely extraneous. some of the contradictions in his claims are too difficult to resolve. he insists that he refuses to use special terminology and vocabulary, because it will get in the way of people understanding, but he says this as preface to avoiding vocabulary that he starts to use later on. he simply cant break down things to the point where none of this vocabulary is used, but continues to insist that he will even after hes failed to do so. it comes off as posturing, and a gimmick he cant deliver on. this by itself is not a very big deal. he also insists that people who tell you theres only "one way" to do mediumship are wrong, even foolish and misleading you, but sooner or later he indirectly (sometimes directly) knocks down every possible alternative to his own guidance. this is simply a difference between words and deeds- he promises one truth and intention, and acts on another truth completely. he says that he doesnt read books, which is possible, because if you watched every single video on mediumship on youtube, plus 1/10 of the videos on psychic development, you could probably glean every single thing he says from those without reading anything. it would be considerably faster to just read an introductory book on psychic mediumship. but carole annes book for example, uses the phrase "love and light" at least once, which cockburn hates- and it includes several practices cockburn insists will prevent you from becoming a medium. he also says that everyone can become a medium- literally everyone. and that everyone is naturally a medium- that its not a gift. after a while, he starts to claim that "no one else is telling you this," but you can find other people making similar claims (theyre all introductory, theyre all simple claims to make) in books, and probably also in videos. what cockburn is sharing is anything but special. he does put his own "branding" onto a few small things. he doesnt like the term "ghost hunting", which he calls "soul seeking". this sort of unique twist on branding is incredibly common among new age vloggers, instructors and authors, so its not special that cockburn does this. many of cockburns protests such as the one on "ghost hunting" are contrived and a bit dishonest, the protests are based on exaggerated presentations of the acts he claims to be against. for example, he protests "love and light" on the grounds that it presents the messages spirits bring as glib or positive only. i dont know any medium that makes that claim, its a straw man. he protests the term "ghost hunting" on the grounds that "mankind" feels like they have a right to "hunt" anything they want, as if "ghost hunting" was primarily about trapping or destroying spirits like in the "ghostbusters" franchise, when actually its pretty much always more of a safari leading to evp recordings and video vlogs, which cockburn does himself. the one thing cockburn does that almost certainly has merit, is that he gives a few tips on how to spot "fake mediums". primarily this is about throwing out "hedge phrases" like "maybe" and "do you have a female", where he describes cold readings and techniques related or similar to cold readings. since ive never seen cockburn do a reading- other than a tarot video where he just holds up various single cards and goes on what for him is (very) typical rant as though its all being "read" from that single card- i couldnt tell if this was intended as a parody of a tarot reading but its a clever narrative device and video idea if it was- i cant hope to rate his skills as a medium. he talks so much about what a real reading and a fake reading looks like. he says hes done "thousands" of readings and with the exact same wording he says hes taught "thousands" of people. i want to pause there, and ask if its really likely that the number of people hes taught to become mediums is likely to be also the number of people hes done readings for. im well aware that "thousands" could refer to very different numbers in two instances- 2000 and 8000 for example, but this just strikes me as rhetoric. this is driven home by my scepticism that hes taught "thousands" of people and ive never once heard from any medium who says they learned from him. i realise theres a community of people (somewhere?) that he says are there to "help" who could be people hes trained, but i find it hard to believe that ive never once seen one of these "thousands" of people hes taught reference him in a video or website. by comparison, i dont think of teal swan (who i appreciate a lot LESS than cockburn) as a household name, but the only place ive ever heard of cockburn is from cockburn himself. there are other points i feel weaken his narrative. it should be said that mediumship may be traditionally at odds with religion, as you dont have to believe in a god or a church to talk to the dead. you can be an atheist who has never seen reason to believe in a god, who nonetheless is quite aware that people die, and who may believe that the dead can still communicate from the afterlife. i doubt very much that cockburn is the only atheistic spiritualist. but his dismissal of religion turns into a dismissal of almost every new age practice, except psychic and mediumship ability, and its not the position that makes me sceptical as much as the effort made to discount and discredit every single other practice. to be less vague, he says protecting against the spirit world only makes it harder to connect, which is interesting, but i think sooner or later we would hear from more mediums who claim that they had more trouble until they stopped doing protection. this isnt conclusive, but im sceptical. hes also against most if not all the rituals people do to connect- which begins to contradict his position that anyone who tells you theres only one way to be a medium is misleading you. hes pretty ruthless about this. he insists you cant remove "energy blockages" because theres no such thing, and even if there were, theres nothing a mere person can do to energy. he all but claims energy is "read only" for people, but then he goes "soul seeking" where spirit is routinely capable of telekinetic ability. people cant AFFECT energy, but spirits can move metal rings on glass surfaces and spin bits of cardboard around a little axle. if a person can simply ask a spirit, which you say is energy, to physically move things in the material world, why would you go to so much trouble to say its impossible for a person to do anything to energy? couldnt you just ask? and this is coming from someone who says that every person has a spirit, a soul, which can leave the body. this is one of those contradictions thats simply too glaring, even if youve read about mysticism and related wild claims for years. cockburn claims to get everything he says (all his teachings) from spirit, no books, though practically everything he says can be found in books and youtube videos. he claims that no one else is telling you these things, but books (and probably other videos from other vloggers) do tell you most of these things. he says that no one can tell you theres only one way, but he tells you theres only one way, indirectly by knocking down every single alternative. in cockburns version of mediumship, there are psychics and mediums but no gods, no possibility of witchcraft (that would involve manipulating energy, which spirits can do but somehow living people who have a spirit- that can even leave the body- cant) and he rules out more than he makes possible from his claims, while saying that things basically all other mediums do (protection, connection rituals) will make it harder to become a medium. it all starts to curve back on itself, to where almost anything that people actually do to become a medium will actually make you less likely to become a medium. as to whether his methods work- while he says that anyone can become (and is) a medium, but almost everything you can do to become a medium will stop you from succeeding- he didnt use these methods to become a medium himself. he simply gained the ability naturally at age 6, with his second experience when he was 8. he is against the idea that people are "gifted" and cannot simply develop the ability themselves, which is fine. but when people dont gain that ability, which he says he can teach anyone to do, he says theyre not putting in the effort, which is a pretty common trope in guru-based cults, when people fail to reach enlightenment- they just need to meditate harder, believe more, question less. ultimately, while he is against hedge phrases in mediumship readings themselves, theres nothing he makes a claim about that can be resolved logically or philosophically without using hedge phrases to smooth over the glaring contradictions. im not saying cockburn isnt a medium- he might be a really good one. i dont know. im saying that if you pay attention to his philosophy, his model and his rhetoric, it ultimately curves back on itself and may actually signify nothing. for all his claims to get everything from spirit and break everything down to the simplest level while avoiding big words and special vocabulary, you could offer more or less the same material in 200 youtube videos by constantly plagiarising other mediums and psychic development materials, and giving all the credit to the spirit world so no one can blame you for giving it to yourself. im also not saying the classes he does are pointless, or useless. but theyre so repetitive, just contradictory enough, and go so over the top to reduce easy enough lessons to crumb-sized bites, that it becomes incredibly tedious to the point where reading a short book would be much, much less trouble. and so much more to the point. taking things one step at a time is great. you have to crawl before you can walk. but cockburns approach is more like laying on the ground and waiting for the wind to carry you to where youre trying to go, whilst telling you that every other way is too difficult and only holding you back. and then telling you that anyone who says something like what he just said, is misleading you. you do of course, have a choice. you can read half of an introductory book yourself, or you can listen to jordan cockburn read you five percent of that book over and over and over, for the length of a few encyclopedia volumes- while telling you that the rest of the book is rubbish. the funniest part is, many of those books will tell you themselves- just use the parts that prove useful to you. so many of cockburns protests against overcomplicating things are like his protests against "hunting" spirits. sure, many authors will warn you against things you may or possibly may not need to be warned about. instead, with cockburn, you get constant and likely overblown warnings against warnings themselves. since his way is so much more effective, and since every other video claims he "brings evidence" of the afterlife, i hope there will be more evidence of this evidence in the future- other than extremely generic ghost hunting videos with a negligible twist on branding. i was actually more impressed with his protest-too-much rhetoric and lessons than the literally-any-youtuber-could-do-these ghost hunting videos. im not your typical debunker, incidentally. i dont have any beef with people who are looking for the spirit world, im not anti-witchcraft, anti-religion, or against people doing readings. i have a tarot deck, which i never use as a joke or psychology/self-help aid. the easiest way to explain me is as an agnostic-leaning person looking for the most plausible evidence of worlds beyond the materialistic. its possible that cockburn talks to the spirit world every day. maybe you do. maybe we all do. but regardless of this, cockburns rhetoric and evidence is kind of shit. even if hes a complete plagiarist- and im not saying he is- im saying a total plagiarist could do better. so could a real teacher. license: 0-clause bsd ``` # 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 # # Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any # purpose with or without fee is hereby granted. # # THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES # WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF # MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. 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