Psychic to the stars Sally Morgan claims Dundee is in for a “stable” year as she prepares to visit the city with her one-woman show, Psychic Sally.
The self-professed medium, who has appeared on This Morning and famously gave a reading to Diana, Princess of Wales, shared her predictions with me on the phone ahead of her show at the Gardyne Theatre.
“You’ve just had some local elections, haven’t you? A big change?” Sally asks, a couple of weeks after the news breaks that Dundee City Council leader John Alexander will step down.
“But I don’t think they’re going to change much,” she continues, her words coming slow like someone who is trying to identify a far-away bird.
“I would be very surprised if anything drastic happened in Dundee, it’s pretty stable. I get the sense that the city is very much on an even keel.”
Calling from her home office in Surrey, Sally makes the proclamation as confidently as if she’s telling me what she’ll have for dinner later.
For her, she explains, life with her “ability” is just normal.
‘I’d know things I shouldn’t know’ says Sally
“I was so young when I began experiencing it, but I didn’t notice it until it was pointed out to me,” says Sally, 72.
“You know, I started wearing spectacles when I was three, and thought that was very normal. I didn’t think I was any different to other children until I went to school and they called me ‘four-eyes’.
“Suddenly I thought: ‘Oh yeah, I’m wearing glasses and you’re not.’ And it was the same with my ability.
“I’d always had it, but it was only when I went to school that the penny dropped with me that I had it, or that everybody else didn’t.
“I’d know things I was told I shouldn’t know.”
For more than 12 years, author and TV personality Sally has been touring the UK with her one-woman show, where she relays “messages” to audience members which she says are from their departed loved ones.
“Touring is just my way of live now,” says Sally. “Once you get on that hamster wheel, you don’t get off.
“My personality completely leads the shows. And it’s about giving the audience messages.”
What is a psychic ‘message’?
So how exactly do the ‘messages’ work?
“It’s me harnessing energy around an individual, and whatever’s in my head, I will say,” Sally explains.
She says audience members have the option to fill out “love letters” – cards with questions about specific departed friends or family, which are put in a bowl for Sally to pick from.
“We can also do it with just photographs,” she says, which is, she explains, how she does psychic readings for celebrities she’s never met.
Or, for the tech-savvy among the crowd, messages can be sent in at the start of the show using WhatsApp.
“You have to put your name, because I need to come and find you in the audience,” Sally says, pre-empting my question about which personal details people are required to volunteer.
After all, where there are psychics, there are sceptics.
And even after facing several controversies and even legal battles over the reality of her ‘ability’, Sally welcomes hers.
Psychic Sally’s not fighting her sceptics
“It’s only because of the sceptics and the cynics in my life questioning my work that I’ve come to know my work better,” she says matter-of-factly.
“I do think questions need asking in this line of work. I question it every day! I’d like answers,” she admits, adding that she’d “love” to undergo brain activity monitoring while using her “ability”.
“The only problem I have with cynics and sceptics nowadays,” she continues, “is that with social media, and all the different platforms, it reaches another level.
“I think a lot of sceptics use the internet and social platforms as a way to just be not nice, and be trolls.”
‘My kids have inherited some abilities’
One of Sally’s cardinal rules is never to use her abilities to predict her own future, or to use them unsolicited.
“I don’t use it for my own benefit, or try to see what I can see around people when they haven’t asked me to. I wouldn’t dream of that.
“As for friends and family, even if I got something right, how would they know I’m not just pulling on what I already know? It’s just not worth going there.”
But she says her children have inherited some of her abilities, and her youngest daughter Fern helps run her business.
“They’re really clued up,” says Sally. “They know what signs are and they can sense things. So they’ve inherited some abilities from me, but not to the extent where they want to use them.”
Psychic Sally sees Dundee cake in future
For Sally, predicting her own future would be “pointless” as it wouldn’t change it. But one thing she prides herself on is “giving people hope” through her shows. So what is she hoping for?
Partly, since the passing of her late husband John in 2021, Sally is hoping to meet a companion.
“It’ll be three years this September since I lost John, I can’t quite believe it,” she says. “I still feel quite young at heart and we used to go out quite a lot. So I miss going out with a companion.
“If someone came along and we could go to dinner or maybe the theatre, that would suit me fine.
“But I’m certainly not looking for another husband!”
As for her visit to Dundee, all Sally’s hoping for is an open-minded crowd – and a slice of “proper” Dundee cake.
“You’ve got that street with the comic book characters [Bash Street] and down the hill from that, there’s a bakers,” she recalls.
“I buy my Dundee cake there, because it’s real, proper Dundee cake.”
Does Sally Morgan buy her Dundee cake from your bakery? Let us know when she brings Psychic Sally to the Gardyne Theatre, Dundee, on September 3 2024. Contact rbaird@thecourier.co.uk
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