Meet the ‘tattoo minister’ who wards off demons in his Times Square parlor
Tattoo unto others as you would have them tattoo unto you.
Tucked in a third-floor parlor above the bustling streets of Times Square lies the only “tattoo ministry” in the world — where artist Tommy Houlihan plays God deciding what tattoos his customers are allowed to get and where they can get them.
“One day, God is going to say, ‘Why did you put this little demon next to this girl’s pelvis?’ What am I going to say, ‘For money?’ ” Houlihan, 55, told The Post.
“I have to answer for it one day.”
The lifelong Hell’s Kitchen resident requires customers to keep it clean, only tattooing certain parts of the body while doling out G-rated images — and miraculous medals to all who stop, hoping that the iconography will help his customers convert to the Catholic faith.
Most visitors to the Manhattan shop accept the token willingly, but there are a few who refuse the tiny oval medal — including one woman who he says was possibly possessed.
“She started debating me and said, ‘You Catholics and your cute little purgatory.’ All I could think is that this woman’s actually manifesting that possession. She’s under attack in some way and is showing through this,” the tattoo artist said.
What people don’t know is that the ink of a tattoo not only punctures the flesh but can invite demons to take over the soul, Houlihan claimed.
That’s why Houlihan refuses to take on any sacrilegious artwork, ranging from ouji boards and angel numbers to inverted crosses and images of the Virgin Mary with her breasts exposed.
Some anime and fictional characters are even too disrespectful for Houlihan to ink.
“Harry Potter is absolutely satanic,” for example, Houlihan claimed.
Because of his location in the heart of the Crossroads of the World, Houlihan typically deals with tourists looking to get commemorative pieces of their trip to the Big Apple, rather than something more sinister.
But there’s still the issue of the placement of a requested tattoo, he said.
“It’s not always about a satanic piece, but it’s the intent,” Houlihan said.
“Nothing wrong with getting a butterfly, but if she wants a butterfly fluttering across her pelvic area, I’m not doing it,” he said of prospective female customers.
As a tattoo artist for three decades, Houlihan previously inked plenty of impious artwork on clients but had a literal come-to-Jesus moment roughly three years ago when he met Zachary King — who claims to be a reformed satanic “high wizard” who left the occult after being instantly converted through the miraculous medal.
That’s when Houlihan, a lifelong Catholic, dove deeper into his faith and began handing out the same miraculous medal to everyone who walks through his shop’s doors in hopes of changing more lives.
At any given time, Houlihan might have Gregorian chants or a reading from the Theologians over his shop’s speakers to ward off what he calls evil spirits and demons.
His approach seems to have worked on some — including a woman who walked in wanting a Betty Boop with devil horns and a tail inked on her hip bone.
“I said, ‘I’m not going to do it. You’re turning it into a demon, it’s obviously demonic … and I’m not going to tattoo you there no matter what because you’re trying to make yourself more sexually attracted by putting this tattoo here. That’s sinful,’ ” Houlihan recalled.
“I explained this to her, and she said she hadn’t thought of it that way. I think that if I had not given her that medal, that she might be a little more hostile about it and gave me an attitude, but she wasn’t. So that’s the kind of graces that come with this.“
Houlihan himself was once covered with “very violent images,” such as the extraterrestrial ripping out of John Hurt’s chest from the 1979 movie “Alien, which he said he had done during a rebellious phase.
He became a tattoo artist in 1989 and worked in illegal parlors for nearly a decade until tattooing became legal in 1997, he said.
Houlihan believes that tattooing itself isn’t sinful but that the community is a “den of vipers” riddled with an affinity for the dark and violent, which he hopes to be a counter to.
He said an exorcist once lauded him by saying, “You’re the anti-venom.”
