A 1982 letter has Qian Xuesen personally guaranteeing, "with my Party spirit," that human body ESP is real

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The Paper (澎湃新闻), a mainstream Chinese digital news outlet, published "钱学森曾以党性担保，人体特异功能是真的" [Qian Xuesen once guaranteed with his Party spirit that human body ESP is real] (2015-07-25), citing a letter Qian Xuesen sent on 1982-05-05 to Yu Wen (郁文), then a deputy director of the Communist Party Central Propaganda Department. The article quotes the letter directly: "我也向您表白我的判断，我并以党性担保：人体特异功能是真的，不是假的；有作假的，有骗人的，但那不是人体特异功能。人体特异功能和气功、中医理论是密切相关的。" ["I also state my judgment to you, and I guarantee with my Party spirit: human body ESP is real, not fake; there is fabrication, there is deception, but that is not human body ESP. Human body ESP is closely related to qigong and TCM theory."] The same article cites, by title and venue, two further Qian articles not read this session: "建立唯象气功学——当前气功科学研究的一项任务" [Establishing Phenomenological Qigong Science], Ziran Zazhi (Nature Magazine) 1986 no. 5, and "对人体科学研究的几点认识" [Some Understandings on Human Body Science Research], Ziran Zazhi 1991 no. 1.

If accurate, this letter predates the 1989 book Wikipedia cites for Qian's qigong/ESP advocacy by seven years, and is the most direct evidence located by any vault session of Qian personally and explicitly staking political credibility on the claim that human ESP is real — suggesting the 1989 book was a late consolidation of an already-taken stance rather than its origin. The wager was made privately, though: the letter is internal correspondence to a Party propaganda official, not a published statement. The same article separately reports Qian making the identical guarantee aloud — "人体特异功能的存在千真万确，我以党性担保" — during a 1985 argument with Yu Guangyuan, but that instance reaches the page through academician He Zuoxiu's recollection in a 2015 interview, so it is a memoir of a public moment rather than a record of one.