Title: Meditation

General Information about Item:

• Ritual

• English

• United States

Informant Data:

• Paula was born in Los Angeles, California on November 15, 1996. Her mother is a nurse at a Los Angeles Hospital. Paula is an Asian American, and her family origins are Filipino, so her background is Western and Southeast Asian. She is Junior at Dartmouth College, studying Cognitive Science and Linguistics. She went to Marymount for High School. Paula dances in SHEBA and is a tour guide in her free time.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context
  • The data was collected in in Baker Library. She was alone when describing how she prepares for exams and why she does certain rituals before every test. The folklore is performed the morning of an exam or presentation which is usually in a high pressure context where Paula is expected to outperform her peers.

• Cultural Context
  • The cultural context of this folklore reflects the competitive atmosphere of Dartmouth college, where every grade impacts as student’s GPA. Students at an Ivy League do not just try to succeed in their classes, but to outperform their peers. As a result of this high stress environment, students may turn to superstitions or ritual to lessen the pressure.

• Item:This lore was recorded during a conversation. Early the morning of an exam, Paula wakes up at 4 am and meditates on the floor of her dorm room for 30 minutes. During her sophomore year at Dartmouth, Paula was very nervous for an exam and could not sleep. After hours of tossing and turning, Paula decided instead to do some meditation to calm her nerves, something that she observed a member of SHEBA doing prior to an exam. After about 30 minutes of meditation, Paula felt much more relaxed and proceeded to do very well on that exam. Ever since then, Paula has continued this pre-exam ritual.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Collector’s Comments:

• Paula described to me a pre-exam ritual of hers. Paula first heard of mediating prior to an exam by a friend of hers on the SHEBA dance team. Paula noticed how much it helped her friend, so she decided to give it a try as well. By mediating early in the morning before her exam, she goes into the exam feeling refreshed and calm. This directly translated into a great score on her exam, so she has been performing the ritual ever since. This is considered folklore since the mediation ritual spread from Paula’s friend on SHEBA to Paula.

Collector’s Name: Magdalena Raska 

Tags/Keywords: Homeopathic Magic. Ritual. Diffusion.