I think this is common in scientists and researchers. They operate at the edge of knowledge with one foot in the unverifiable and their eyes peering further still into the murky unknown. There is no map nor direction where they're going, and that extension out into the darkness is often much like superstitious belief.
What makes them different from followers of the occult that remain lost in the fog is that science returns from explorations with verifiable proof. Research lays down new foundations in order to venture yet another step further outwards.