Waite's Grand Orient writings have to be seen in light of the tradition of fortune-telling manuals. I have a significant collection of them and Waite probably did, too. Most publishers found that they provided a nice little stream of money and many such manuals went into numerous editions. All of them basically steal from all of the others because the idea is to present a new edition for a new readership of traditional, tried-and-true methods - those with a venerable lineage. These books by Waite were just his contribution to this tradition - which is why he used the pseudonym (another venerable tradition when writing such books). The academic book, _Reading Russian Fortunes_, details a great many of such manuals, most of which were Russian translations of European books.
Most of these manuals are put together by hack-writers in a publisher's stable and, to some extent, Waite worked in that capacity (remember he also earned a living writing advertising copy). For instance, we can find that coffee-ground readings are basically unchanged through many books going back to 1796 or before. Occasionally something new gets thrown into the mix. Waite's material on the Tarot owes quite a bit to Paul Christian and Etteilla for inspiration. In fact, it becomes interesting to see how his ideas evolved into what appears in PKT. Similarly, Mathers' published Tarot book was just a brief English-language synopsis of Etteilla and his followers - not a book on Golden Dawn Tarot.
Many of these manuals, some going back to the 17th century are available online (as ebooks, pdfs, etc.) through Google books or universities. You can trace almost everything in Grand Orient as coming through them. See:
Every Lady's Own Fortune Teller
Mother Shipton's Fortune Teller
Scottish Chapbooks
Witches Dream Book
New Complete Fortune Telling . . . by Ibraham Hafez
Madame Zadkiel's . . .
The Modern Sybil
Moll Pitcher's Prophecies
The Gypsy Fortune Teller
The Poetical Book of Fate
L'Oracle Parfait
The Oraculum or Napoleon's Book of Fate
The Complete Fortune Teller
Le Marchand's Fortune Teller
and on and on . . .
to say nothing of similar books on magical rituals and ceremonies, talismans, and more that Waite also wrote about as Grand Orient - basically passing on the same ole stuff.