In writing The Search for the Lost Prophecy, I found myself drawn back to my hometown of Detroit, a city steeped in a long history of secret societies, adventurous entrepreneurs, and mysterious connections to Ancient Egypt.
In the 1920s, Detroit was the fourth-largest city in America. From European immigrants to the Great Migration, hundreds of thousands of people descended on the city during the first half of the twentieth century with the hopes of capturing a piece of the American Dream. Two young inventors from Niles, Michigan, were Horace and John Dodge. Horace and his brother, John, became hugely successful in the auto industry, first working for Henry Ford and then forming their own car company in 1914. And while they didn’t design the Stout Scarab, the car was in many ways a legacy of their commitment to innovation and cutting-edge design. Only nine of these bizarre beetle-shaped automobiles were ever created.
The Scarab Club was and still is a real organization located in the heart of Detroit and dedicated to the preservation of the arts. Originally founded by Robert Hopkins, the society was renamed in 1926 when it settled into its new home on the corner of John R and Farnsworth Streets. It’s a small, unassuming building hidden behind the Detroit Institute of Arts. The second floor has an amazing wood-paneled study with a beautiful mural on one wall, the names of its past members written across the ceiling beams in chalk, and a stone fireplace with a scarab beetle carved into the capstone of the hearth.
Lastly, any visitor who travels to Detroit must also take a trip up Woodward Avenue and visit Woodlawn Cemetery. At the northern edge of the city, this graveyard, like Silverbrook Cemetery in Niles, is where the city’s most famous residents are buried. At the back, resting among the trees, is a tomb of grand proportions. When I saw the emblem of Ra over the doorway, the two sphinx guardians lining the steps, and the Dodge name written across the doorway, I knew I had to tell their story.