I ran across this in Waite's
Manual of Cartomancy and Occult Divination, 1889, written under the name Grand Orient; this section is entitled "Ruling by the Law of Grace." I've posted it before but it seems especially relevant here. He talks of entering another sphere of existence through the exercise of will, a sphere where the "good and evil" forces of fate have no influence upon the person. It's interesting that he includes the good forces; his reasoning is that living in a state of grace is better than the best of outcomes fate has to offer. Here it's worth mentioning that in the PKT's section "The Greater Arcana and their Divinatory Meanings," one of the meanings for the Devil says, "That which is predestined but is not for this reason evil." From this it would seem Waite viewed the Devil as fate but that not all fate is necessarily evil; it does keep a person imprisoned to a certain extent though. It makes me think of life under the control of a benevolent dictator. Sometimes benevolent, but still a dictator.
"Those who consult the oracles of this Manual will not be aware in most cases that there is any philosophy of the whole subject, and I have hinted already that this is scarcely the place to speak at any length on the serious side of things. That which seems necessary has been said in the introductory part, and in "The Book of the Secret Word" a single illustration has been given of certain high phases which may be assumed by seeming divinatory methods. It is not my proposal now to rescind the unofficial covenant into which it may be held that I have entered; but because we have been dealing with questions of fatality and omen, and have still some words to say on the observation of times and seasons, it seems desirable to express with simplicity one law which has always been recognized by the wise as governing from another sphere the common laws of destiny. It has been usually put forward in the past as the art of ruling the stars [fate] by the Law of Grace, and if the imputed operation were restricted to astrological influence, there would be no call to speak of it, as this is not a handbook of astrology. It obtains, however, in all questions of doom, fortune and presages. I should add further that it is the more proper to our purpose because in collecting these lesser curiosities and trivialities of the old occult sciences, I am offering them for what they are worth and in no sense enlisting belief in regard to them at this day. Those therefore who, on any prior considerations, or by some predisposition of the mind, may give credit already to such arts, can and should fitly be cautioned that there is another side of the whole matter from which it is well to approach it.
This arises from the theological consideration that man by his material constitution and external environment is normally under the law of Nature, which may not be incorrectly described as one of imperfection and fatality, but that it depends upon his own will whether he shall pass under the ruling of the higher Law of Grace, whereby he is so assisted that he can overcome the operation of Nature on the moral and personal side within him, and so earn a title to the eternal Kingdom. It is obvious that he cannot control the forces of the physical universe and the rising or the setting of the stars, but he can soar above the sphere of natural temptation and thus of the fatalities which it exercises.
Now, therefore, the art of ruling the stars by the Law of Grace does not result from any formal process of prayers or invocation, by which their evil influences can be arbitrarily averted or their benignant effects drawn down in the particular direction of the operator. It depends rather, and indeed wholly, upon the soul’s entrance into another sphere, where they cannot operate, either for evil or good. But if it be suggested to any mind that after this manner the happy celestial influences may be perchance missed, the answer is that they have been exchanged already for that which is better infinitely, since no one will affirm that it is not preferable to live under the Law of Grace than any lower law which governs—occultly or overtly—the starry heavens, the times, the tides, the days and all the dubious region of blind and automatic influences. It follows in this way that the lesser can be exchanged for the greater good, and when this has been accomplished there will never be any cause to repent of such a transfer. If it be, asked whether the malefic work of the stars and the other fatal forces is cancelled entirely for those who dwell in the world of Grace, I believe this to be true—largely on the hypothesis that such fatalities exist; but I am quite certain that should the Querent follow this high counsel, till he comes where material misfortunes cannot signify, it is reasonable to think that what has become void of import has been reduced to a thing of no effect.
It is understood that the influence of the stars can only be exercised on man by a certain similitude or analogy which subsists between them and him. Hence it has been said by some theologians of the occult school that the heavens are truly within man and the stars thereof. It behoves a man who realizes this truth to change his own aspects, and, so acting, he shall have no reason to fear what can be done to him by the world without. It is further well known, and has been experienced by many, that the whole creation moves in order and harmony along the path of those who by reason of their clean heart and unfailing inward fire do proceed daily in the mystery of the love of God. To sum up therefore, those who by the Law of the Spirit overrule the concupiscence and the appetites of the natural man, confessing only to a Divine motive, do cancel the correspondence which exists between the stars and the course of our life; and it is in this sense—as an old writer has told us—that by operating upon the stars which are within us it can be said mystically, and for the attainment of our proper term, that we can rule all the others. When a man sets his face towards Jerusalem the offices of all the world are rendered subservient to his purpose and become his helps thereto. The Sun of Justice rises over his soul; the stars in the heaven within him utter counsel to one another."