Julian Jaynes had a very interesting theory concerning the Bicameral Mind.
This theory is that in earlier pre-conscious ages, men literally heard voices (auditory hallucinations) commanding them in mildly to highly stressful situations. Men represented these voices as gods. Due to many reasons, mainly the Bronze Age collapse, these voices began to fade away, leaving us with many highly unsatisfactory coping mechanisms for the loss of authority.
It seems to explain a good deal of the alienness of Bronze Age - the all-encompassing devotion to gods that no-longer exists, and many other things. I wish Julian had written more about the remnants of the bicameral mind in primitive peoples that still exist today in the Amazon or New Guinea.
And of course he's in the logs.