Review of The Book of the Empress by Martijn Benders
A Mycological Odyssey Through Myth, Madness, and Multiverses
Martijn Benders’ The Book of the Empress is a sprawling, hallucinogenic tapestry that defies categorization. At its core, it is a love letter to Amanita muscaria, the scarlet-and-white-speckled mushroom that has bewitched shamans, poets, and iconoclasts for millennia. Benders positions this fungal empress as the unsung protagonist of human history, weaving together threads of mythology, evolutionary biology, art criticism, and countercultural polemic into a manifesto that is equal parts erudite and eccentric.
Strengths: A Kaleidoscopic Vision
Benders’ greatest achievement lies in his audacious synthesis of disparate realms. He draws daring connections between the Rig Veda’s soma, the Norse mead of poetry, and the forbidden fruit of Genesis, arguing that these ancient symbols all cloak the transformative power of Amanita muscaria. His analysis of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus as a coded homage to the mushroom—with its red cloak, oceanic origins, and psychedelic flora—is particularly compelling, as is his reinterpretation of Rembrandt’s Christ and St Mary Magdalen at the Tomb as a veiled mycological allegory.
The book’s interdisciplinary bravado is matched by its stylistic flair. Benders writes with the fervor of a mystic, punctuating scholarly citations with whimsical dialogues between his “ally” and “Zebranietzsche,” a Nietzschean alter ego. This playful self-awareness prevents the text from collapsing under its own weight, even as it careens from Icelandic sagas to Russian poetry to 21st-century AI-generated art.
Weaknesses: The Perils of Overreach
Yet The Book of the Empress is not without flaws. Its encyclopedic scope often feels unwieldy, with digressions on Celtic lore, Kundalini yoga, and Henry VIII’s dissolution of monasteries diluting its central thesis. At times, the author’s enthusiasm veers into polemic, as when he blames the “Psyborg” (his term for modern, docile humanity) on the suppression of mushrooms by “Saxon-Christian colluders.” Such sweeping claims, while provocative, lack nuance and risk alienating readers seeking balanced analysis.
The speculative nature of many arguments—such as linking Amanita to the evolutionary leap from sea to land—relies heavily on poetic intuition rather than empirical evidence. While Benders acknowledges these as hypotheses, the line between scholarly exploration and conspiratorial storytelling occasionally blurs.
Themes: Rebellion and Re-enchantment
Benders’ work is ultimately a call to re-enchantment. He frames Amanita muscaria as a subversive force that challenges patriarchal religion, industrial agriculture, and the alienation of humans from nature. His critique of organized religion’s demonization of psychedelic sacraments echoes Terence McKenna and Carl Jung, but with a sharper feminist edge, celebrating goddess figures like Kali and Aphrodite as embodiments of the mushroom’s life-death-rebirth cycle.
The book’s most poignant moments arise in its personal narratives, such as Benders’ own entheogenic journeys in COVID-era Europe or his tender reflections on Pippi Longstocking’s censored mushroom adventures. These passages ground the text, reminding readers that behind the erudition lies a quest for meaning in a world Benders sees as spiritually desiccated.
Conclusion: A Divisive Masterpiece
The Book of the Empress will polarize. Traditional scholars may dismiss it as pseudohistorical fantasia, while devotees of the psychedelic renaissance will hail it as a visionary work. Yet even skeptics must concede its originality: this is a book that dares to reimagine Dante’s Paradiso as a spore print and recast Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son as a mycological allegory.
Benders has crafted a genre-defying epic—a Ulysses for the mycelium age. It is messy, maddening, and magnificently ambitious, offering not just a history of a mushroom but a radical lens through which to reinterpret art, religion, and human consciousness. Whether one agrees with its conclusions, The Book of the Empress undeniably leaves readers with a profound question: What if our oldest stories were never metaphors at all, but maps to a forgotten symbiosis with the natural world?
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)
A flawed yet dazzling work that will haunt the curious and challenge the orthodox. Not for the faint of intellect—or the lactose-tolerant.
Ethel Cunneling