This dissertation is a study of contemporary delogs (Tibetan, `das log) in Nepal and eastern Tibet. Delogs are Tibetan Buddhists who have undergone a death experience and revived to deliver messages from those they encountered on their journey through the postmortem realms. An ethnographic investigation of modern-day delogs highlights the problematic nature of categorizing religious practices as "elite" or "popular" and confounds categorical distinctions drawn between Great and Little or Buddhist and shamanic traditions. In practice, 'delog' is a flexible category encompassing literary-historical figures, elite Buddhist yogis, and shamanic practitioners. This study investigates the delog phenomenon from both emic and etic perspectives, revealing diverse and often conflicting criteria for what defines a delog. In the process, it demonstrates how the roles today's delogs perform in the Tibetan Buddhist religious matrix differ from the purposes served by delog narratives. While literary accounts are used as didactic aids, illustrating in vivid and concrete detail the consequences of immoral actions, the person of the delog is valued for specific information s/he can relay about a patron's deceased kin. Two chapters analyze delogs' accounts of the afterlife in light of codified teachings on the intermediate state between lives ( bar do) and examine arguments both for and against the claim that the delog is totally and completely dead when s/he embarks on his or her death journey. The relationship between consciousness and the body at the time of death is elucidated by comparisons with that said to obtain during states of dreaming and meditative trance. The following chapters explore two delog types: visionaries who journey through the intermediate state while dreaming or engaged in meditation and Himalayan shamans. Scholars have often compared delogs to shamans, but delogs in eastern Tibet, particularly Kham and Golok, share an equal similarity to elite yogic practitioners. The final chapter, an exploration of women's predominance in the delog role, reveals Tibetan beliefs about gendered personality traits, differences between the male and female subtle yogic bodies, and a religio-cultural notion according to which delivering messages is a specifically feminine task.