This article considers the role of cultural memory in urbanites’ behaviour, by focusing on the feelings produced by obeyed and disobeyed traditional rules. Interviews, participant observation, and data collected from villages and towns in Moldova offered the analyzed data. This article argues that personal awareness of the full obedience to ritual prescriptions leads to a positive expectation of events, while as the decision to break taboos is followed by anxiety and a tendentious interpretation of the outcome. The rites of passage illustrate the magic reasoning clearly as they are designed to secure the transition against all unseen threats. This approach reinforces the connections between culture and human mind.