Indeed, many of the spiritual disciplines and practices taught by the mystical traditions of the world are designed specifically to develop these abilities. The transmission of spiritual knowledge, however, requires a much deeper development of abilities in the receiver than does physical or mathematical science. Consequently, it may appear that it is not possible to share or transmit spiritual knowledge when, in fact, it is merely much more difficult to do so. Spiritual science, therefore, requires faith. But it does not demand faith to the exclusion of truth or reason.
Faith is merely a stepping stone to knowledge.
Faith serves this essential role in the mathematical and physical sciences as well. The first step in the training of a physicist is to accept on faith the teachings of the physicists at the university. Only after years of training in the theories and experimental methods of physics is one capable of actually verifying for oneself that the teachings are true. Then faith is replaced by knowledge. The understanding of faith in sacred science, therefore, is that any acceptance on faith is provisional only, and the truth of any hypothesis is always subject to experimental verification.