BYGONE SUSSEX - online book

Essays, Sketches and Illustrations of bygone Sussex

	I N the year 1659 there occured one of those incidents which are sufficiently common in the annals of what is vaguely known as " spiritualism." In the age when it occurred the Brightling disturbance was regarded as "a stupendous and amazing piece of Providence." The narrative of the affair was written by the minister of Brightling, and is given in Clark's " Mirror of Saints, etc." According to this narrative the disturbances began in the evening of November 7th, 1659, when a man found that a fire had kindled in his milkhouse; on the 9th dust was thrown upon the man and his wife as they lay in bed. Next morning various things were thrown about, and the fire was again kindled in the same place in the milkhouse, but was put out by the woman. Then it blazed out in the eaves of the house, but was extinguished by a neighbour. A pot standing on the table was broken with a piece of brick. As they were going to fill a tub with water, to set by them all 9