Spiritual and health counsellor Mehdi Jaffari of the Life Clinic in Sydney does not perform miracles for his clients but says it is a miracle he escaped his homeland and lived to serve people at all.

Mehdi says he narrowly escaped being hanged and shot by a firing squad during a revolution in Iran in 1979.

Being a refugee from a revolution and a survivor of several heart attacks years later in Australia, Mehdi says it is a miracle he is even alive.

Several brushes with death and a near-death experience have given him a strong faith in God, he says, which inspires him to help people.

Spiritual and health counsellor Mehdi Jaffari of the Life Clinic in Sydney does not perform miracles for his clients but says it is a miracle he escaped his homeland and lived to serve people at all.

Mehdi says he narrowly escaped being hanged and shot by a firing squad during a revolution in Iran in 1979.

Being a refugee from a revolution and a survivor of several heart attacks years later in Australia, Mehdi says it is a miracle he is even alive.

Several brushes with death and a near-death experience have given him a strong faith in God, he says, which inspires him to help people.

Mehdi and his wife, Tracy, set up the clinic in Chatswood in Sydney in 2005. He counsels multicultural clients of all religions.

He is qualified with a Certificate In Community Work from Auckland University to counsel adults, children and families in mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction, self-awareness and life in general.

He also counsels individuals and families in spiritual healing and energizing.

Mehdi lived with his family and owned a mechanical garage in Tehran in 1979 during the revolution in Iran.

He says that because he helped wounded protesters running to his garage for help, the police kept trying to arrest and imprison him.

Police arrested him at gunpoint at Tabriz and tried to hang him from a tree in public, he says, but a recently elected leader miraculously came by just in time to stop the hanging. After questioning Mehdi, the police let him go the next day.

Another time during the revolution he was arrested and imprisoned in Tehran. After he had been in prison for two weeks, he says, the police told him they were going to kill him, took him to a remote place, blindfolded him and fired their guns in the air. When he still could not answer their questions, they took him back to prison.

"Miraculously, I escaped with a friend's help," he says. 

To avoid the police he left his family and business and slept on the street.

His garage was demolished and his house was burned down in 1980 and he had to take his wife and children and leave them with relatives.

The Ayatollah who had taken over from the Shah and set up a republic was executing thousands of political opponents.

Mehdi escaped alone to the border of Turkey but was quickly arrested by immigration police and imprisoned overnight.

They were to take him back to Tehran where "I faced serious charges, prison and certain execution," he says.

"The miracle is that overnight the captain of the prison received spiritual messages telling him to release me."

He says the next morning the captain took him across the border into Turkey and let him go.

Later that year, 1980, Iraq invaded Iran and began an eight-year war which killed about a million people.

He lived in Turkey and worked in the film industry there, with his wife and children visiting him at times.

After he helped some refugees coming from Iran, he says, police arrested him for not having a passport and imprisoned, questioned and beat him.

He says he bribed authorities and escaped to Malaysia with his family in 1989.

After being in Malaysia less than a month, police arrested him for not having a passport. He was imprisoned there for nine months before being deported to Bangladesh.

After travelling from Bangladesh and living in Singapore for a couple of years, he was allowed into New Zealand in 1992 as a political refugee.

He studied counselling, community services and addiction at Auckland University then set up a Life Clinic in Auckland and practised as a counsellor and healer.

When he suffered his first heart attack in 2000, he says, he had an after-death experience before paramedics arrived.

He met and married Tracy in New Zealand in 2002 and they moved to Australia in 2005.

Mehdi survived four heart attacks in 2007 and underwent an angiogram and stenting procedure. In early 2008 he underwent life saving heart surgery at Royal North Shore Hospital. He has advanced coronary artery disease.

"It is nothing short of a miracle I am still alive today," he says.

"I believe God has controlled circumstances in my life, without a doubt," he says. "I feel that without his intervention, I would not be here today."  

Mehdi Jaffari's Life Clinic is at 195 Fullers Road, Chatswood, NSW, 2067; telephone (02) 9410 3143 or (02)] 9403 5995, mobile 0432 574277 or 0403 700438, email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

The Life Clinic web site is at www.toolsforlife-dvd.com.au .

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Media contacts: Mehdi and Tracy Jaffari, Life Clinic Counselling, 195 Fullers Road, Chatswood, NSW, 2067; telephone (02) 9410 3143 or (02)] 9403 5995, mobile 0432 574277 or 0403 700438, email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Download a high-resolution photograph of Mehdi Jaffari at www.wb-pr.com/mj/mj.htm .