Kratochwil's magnificent The Status of Law in World Society's first meditation, a philosophical discursus masquerading as a meditation about meditation, addresses how International Law and International Relations deal so differently with their common concerns. Kratochwil treats these concerns with his usual cogency. Yet, critical links are missing. How do we get from speaking as a normative practice to the status of law in today's world? How does language (even more than law) go from an ‘agency-related notion’ to ‘a pervasive force penetrating all social relations’? The bewitchment of the world through language is ontology's greatest mystery, worthy of endless meditation.