The article provides conceptualization of the worldview of Russian Freemasons of the 18th-19th centuries. Instead of the concept «Christian mysticism», which the author believes to be highly problematic, he uses the theory of «Western esotericism as a form of thought» by Antoine Faivre, applying it to the study of archival materials from the Masonic funds of the Russian State Library’s Manuscript Department. This new conceptualization allows, firstly, to explain contradictions in the Masonic worldview; secondly, through reconstructing this worldview as an integral system, provide a key for understanding some enigmatic Masonic texts; thirdly, to evaluate a proper place of the Russian Freemasonry and its role as the «third pillar» of the Russian culture along with Orthodox Christianity and Enlightenment rationalism.