> they must have been much more reactive and automatic in their behaviour, and if you could travel back in time you would feel like you are amongst complete lunatics and it would be very frightening

This is exactly how I feel when I visit certain extremely religious relatives. They have a 'spiritual' explanation for almost every last tiny detail of their ongoing daily experience. Sometimes I think a few of the more fringe groups of this sort are actively enabling unmedicated schizophrenics.