Knowing spells deliver knowledge about something directly to the mage (or to another target). A mage can divine the cause of a corpse’s death (Death), sense whether someone has a powerful destiny (Fate), or unerringly know which way is north (Space).
This knowledge is a direct awareness of Supernal truth; the mage doesn’t have to interpret evidence based on her senses or try to divine the truth out of cryptic riddles.
In Game:
Knowing magics reveal subtler information than those found within the Practice of Unveiling. While Unveiling imparts sensory knowledge, Knowing allows a willworker to delve into the lore of the Mysteries. Such magics are equally useful to spies, investigators, socialites and warriors, bestowing awareness beyond the ken of ordinary thought.
An important detail to note is that Knowing magics specifically do not bestow sensory information upon the mage. The Practice of Knowing deals in facts, not the senses. (Not even exceptional senses, such as those granted by certain Arcana effects.) A mage who casts a Knowing spell simply acquires knowledge thereby, rather than perceiving phenomena that must then be analysed.
A mage doesn’t always understand what Knowing spells help her to learn, but she receives the information directly, without the need for interpretation. What she makes of that knowledge, however, is up to her.
In Story:
Knowing magics can be strange and even frightening to a newly Awakened person. Such spells can flood an undisciplined mage’s mind with unwelcome awareness, making her detect every living thing nearby (or every thinking mind) or even behold how a given individual died. Thus, the mentors of these willworkers usually try to help them to take the magics of this Practice firmly in hand as quickly as possible. Still, horror stories circulate of those who could not assimilate this knowledge fast enough, and who were broken by what they saw — terrible perceptions that they lacked the training to block out. This danger is much more common with Focused Mage Sight however, which truly delves into the bottomless fractals of truth.
As mages grow in power and understanding, most mages continue to fall back upon the trusty magics of the Practice of Knowing. Even the most jaded and self-important mage knows, on some level, that she doesn’t possess all of the answers, and Knowing spells supplement the most expansive bank of knowledge, helping Apprentice and Master alike to learn the answers to even the most elusive of riddles.
Many sages of Awakened lore contend that Knowing was the last of the most elementary Practices to be formally codified. Because Compelling spells are active magics, and Unveiling effects specifically impart sensory information, these scholars believe that the somewhat more rarefied and ephemeral qualities discerned by the Practice of Knowing made it a slightly more difficult Practice to perfect. Others believe that the drive to learn led the Awakened of the First City to develop the Practice of Knowing first, later creating the Practices of Unveiling and Compelling to refine what the Awakened learned with Knowing and then to act upon it, respectively.