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What is hedge witchcraft?
Hedge Witchcraft, mainly, is a blend of the magickal and medicinal uses of plants and trance work, or meditative journeying within the practice to retrieve information from the otherworld or spiritual realm. Hedge Witchcraft can incorporate other types of witchcraft such as Kitchen Witchcraft or Cottage Witchcraft but the types of craft that can be incorporated are not limited to these two.
Hedge witchcraft is in part based on the village witch and their remedies and cures. This is why I feel the medicinal qualities of plants are necessary to at least research in order to be considered practicing hedge witchcraft.
What is hedge riding?
The Definition of Hedge Riding
Simply put, hedge riding is a spiritual journey into the otherworld realms, the collective unconscious . It is shamanic in nature.
From: https://www.flyingthehedge.com/2018/01/hedge-riding-series-what-is-hedge-riding.html
The hedge is the symbolic boundary between the worlds. Hedge riding is the journey your spirit takes into the Otherworld or Underworld realms, sometimes called the upper and lower realms . The middle realm being our everyday world that we live in.
From: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hedge_riding
Hedge riding is a trance-like state where one can be taken in the "astral and even sometimes the physical to walk between the worlds . In doing so, one can glean information to take back into daily life.
From: https://www.llewellyn.com/journal/article/3049
It is a form of neo-shamanic journeying. There are a number of great books on it. Other related ideas are hedge crossing, entheogenic journeying, and the witchs sabbath.
The reason it's called hedge riding is because the hedge is seen as a boundary, or liminal space. So, you are straddling the space between one world, or reality, and another.
From: https://www.reddit.com/r/pagan/comments/12e0q28/so_i_heard_the_term_hedge_riding/?rdt=64436
Is Hedge Riding Astral Projection?
It can be, but more typically when a hedge witch practices hedge crossing what they are undertaking is a meditative journey using the clair senses to retrieve and then interpret information.
My personal opinions on astral projection lack enough experience with it. I have done remote viewing and this can act as a way of gathering information but this form of perceiving is done at the physical level. It is a physical world thing so the information perceived is not coming from the spiritual world. It is a way to gather psychic information but on the physical level only.
Astral projection while can be considered a type of hedge crossing is not the only way for a hedge witch to cross, and can be a rather difficult way to cross for some.