According to Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210) in his Kitāb al-Sirr al-Maktūm (Book of the Hidden Secret), there are twelve prerequisites for practicing astral magic. Most of these conditions center on the comportment of the practitioner: one must be somber and serious, restrained, secretive, industrious, resolute, and confident. Once these requirements are met, the aspirant is then advised to purify their body by balancing the humors, reducing food intake, avoiding worldly distractions, cleansing the heart of impure thoughts, and strengthening the mind. The aim is that one may, through particular embodied practices, sever their attachment to the corporeal world and orient themselves towards the spiritual realm, for the magic that Rāzī details is accomplished through connection with celestial spirits (al-rūḥanniyāt). In eighteenth- century Cairo, a scholar named Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Kahsnāwī al-Sudānī (d. 1142/1741-2) wrote a commentary on and epitome of Rāzī’s Sirr al-Maktūm, called al-Durr al- Manẓūm. In his reworking of Rāzī’s text, Kashnāwī also lists twelve conditions that must be met in order to engage in magical pursuits. While some of Kashnāwī’s instructions match those found in the Sirr al-Maktūm, he diverges from Rāzī’s text in several significant ways. Most notably, Kashnāwī introduces the frameworks of authorization (ijāza) and piety (taqwā) to this discussion of the prerequisites of magical practice. In this paper, I present material from these two related grimoires to demonstrate the ways in which Rāzī and Kashnāwī center embodied practice in their theories of and instructions for magic. In bringing together and building upon recent scholarship on these two texts (the Sirr al-Maktūm and the Durr al-Manẓūm), my analysis highlights Kashnāwī’s original contributions and forefronts the active role of commentator. Kashnāwī’s revisions and additions are evidence both of the enduring relevance of Rāzī’s work centuries after it was written, and also of transformations in theories of magic that occurred in the early modern period.