Epoch: The Esotericon & Portals of Chaos is Peter J. Carroll's latest addition to the Chaos magickal canon. I purchased this only recently, so haven't had the time to either read it fully or consolidate the contents; however, the book appears to seek to synthesise the history of Western magical traditions - and the various god forms that have been central to it - into a 'Fifth Aeon' form of Chaotist technowizadry. Of interest here is the inclusion of Carroll's own take on the 'stellar magicks' of the Necronomicon (along with a set of 'Portal' cards, which include images of various of Lovecraft's alien gods for visualization and, presumably, oracular purposes). In truth, I found Carroll's take on the Necronomicon to be rather staid and traditionalist, insofar as it - like many other so-called Necronomicons - remains tied to the formalised ritualism of late 19th Century Western esoteric praxis, and in doing so seemigly fails to engage with the alien and hyperdimensional magics evident in Lovecraft's work. Indeed, some of the Chaos magicians I was working with in the early 2000s were, back then, already doing stuff that was far more innovative, creative and radical than found here. The portal deck which comes with the book is nice, but the cgi illustrations do feel rather dated. That said, Carroll's Necronomicon does contain some interesting conjectures from an occult perspective regarding the nature of Lovecraft's Old Ones, as well esoteric speculations on the relationship of Lovecraft's creations to (post-) modern and existentialist notions of selfhood - although in this respect it seems more of a consolidation of his older ideas rather than a radical rethinking of the subject matter.
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