[1][2][3] This concept has appeared in various philosophical, religious, and cultural contexts throughout history, emphasizing the immanence of the divine or the individual's potential to achieve a godlike state.
[11] Early individuals who declared themselves to be gods include the English prophet John Robins and Danilo Filipov, who led a heterodox Quaker cult in Russia.
[14][15][16] In the 18th century, Enlightenment thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau proposed the idea of a civil religion to unify society, which critics accused of encouraging self-worship among citizens.
[17] [18][19][20][21][22] In the 19th century, Transcendentalist philosophies emerged, with Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Ralph Waldo Emerson emphasizing the divine potential of the individual.
In his work The Ego and Its Own, Stirner argued that the individual is the ultimate authority and creator of meaning, rejecting external deities and societal constructs.