Laravel 5.2 redirect back with success message

You should remove web middleware from routes.php. Adding web middleware manually causes session and request related problems in Laravel 5.2.27 and higher.

If it didn’t help (still, keep routes.php without web middleware), you can try little bit different approach:

return redirect()->back()->with('message', 'IT WORKS!');

Displaying message if it exists:

@if(session()->has('message'))
    <div class="alert alert-success">
        {{ session()->get('message') }}
    </div>
@endif