Having established that the Bardo Thodol is a specific Nyingma terma rather than the Western package built around it, the text's actual content deserves description, since its instructions follow a structured sequence the sensationalized Western reception rarely conveys accurately.
The instructions address three successive intermediate states following death. The chikhai bardo, the moment of death, presents the dying person with the "clear light" of ultimate reality, and recognizing it directly brings immediate liberation, the most direct opportunity offered and, the tradition acknowledges, the one most people fail to recognize for lack of training. Failing that, the chonyid bardo follows with visionary deities appearing over several days, first peaceful, radiant buddha-forms and then, if unrecognized, wrathful, flame-wreathed deities, and the instruction repeated throughout is that every figure, serene or terrifying, is the dying person's own mind projecting itself.
Failing recognition throughout, the sidpa bardo follows, in which the deceased, possessing a subtle body, is drawn toward rebirth, confronted by the Lord of Death weighing actions and by signs of the six realms, with instructions for closing the womb-door and choosing a favorable rebirth. The whole sequence embodies the main entry's point: not a passage through an afterlife to be judged, but a repeated invitation to recognize the mind's own projections.