The Baal Shem Tov, or Besht —  the founder of Chasidism — 
met the soul of the Messiah during an ascent to heaven. 
The Besht asked him, "When will the Master come?" 
The Messiah answered, "When your wellsprings break forth to the outside!" 
(from a letter written by the Besht to his brother-in-law about one of his soul ascents) 

History and Evolution of Chasidus

Until NeoHasid has its own resources, here's a link to the Wikipedia articles on "Hasidic Judaism" and "Neo-Hasidism". Eventually you should be able to come to this page in order to learn from or add to a knowledge base on the history of Chasidut and the evolution of neo-Chasidus outside the Chasidic world. In the meantime, there's room to edit and modify the Wikipedia entries. I would like to include a tree showing the lineages of all the Chasidic dynasties, something that as far as I know is not available on the web, though most of the factual information that would be needed can be accessed (see e.g. Wikipedia's list of Hasidic dynasties). If you can help code a Wikipedia-style resource that can be created by the users of this site, please let me know!

Design in progress © Rabbi David Mevorach Seidenberg 2006