Kees,

> Didn’t you agree with me that the beast is actually a
> metaphor for the human body?
>
> Why the change?

I agreed with you because on one level, the micro level, the Beast of Revelation is a symbol for the individual human psyche, that which is chained to the material world or the body. But on a macro level, I remember explaining that when many "Beast psyches" come together, they form a collective consciousness and its on this macro level of interpretation that the Beast represents political power. After all, political powers are made up of a collective of individuals.

Rob