Do you remember this woman?

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher isn’t generally known as a New Age mysticism sort of person. Yet India’s former foreign minister, K. Natwar Singh, reports on two unusual meetings between the former Prime Minister and an Indian tantric, known as Chandraswami. When the mystic was visiting the UK in 1975, he requested a meeting with Thatcher, who had recently been made leader of the Conservative Party. This was four years before she became Prime Minister, so she agreed to give him 10 minutes of her time . Singh reports that Chandraswami asked Thatcher to write down five questions on strips of paper. He then crumpled them up, closed his eyes, and proceeded to offer accurate answers to all of them. Thatcher was so impressed that she requested another meeting. During their second encounter, Chandraswami made a few predictions—that Thatcher would be Prime Minister within four years and she’d be in power for nine, 11, or 13 years. She held the post for 11, ultimately. Chandraswami has since fallen rather far from grace. He has been implicated in the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Ghandi. He’s also been convicted of breaching laws on currency exchange. Either Chandraswami’s preternatural insight has failed him, or Singh’s story isn’t quite the whole truth. After all, it did come out when Singh had a book to sell, and got him some press coverage.